Monkeying around

Now that I'm more comfortable with my bread-baking skills, I thought I'd try a fresh-from-scratch monkey bread recipe from a recent Taste of Home magazine.  (Must be a subscriber to see online.)

It's so much easier to make bread this time of year.  I can leave the dough out on our enclosed back porch, and the warm temps help it rise.

I had a little trouble with the caramel syrup.  It solidified while I was shaping the balls of dough, so I had to reheat it to make it pourable again.  Then when I removed the bread from the pan, the syrup was so thick, it stuck to the bottom of the pan (along with most of the chopped pecans).  I scraped the caramel from the bottom of the pan and spooned it back on to the warm bread.

Overall, these rolls were great, although they were a little on the dry side.  Not sure why, but I may have overcooked the bread a little.  Lately, I've been erring on the side of overcooking, after several attempts at baking bread that ended up still doughy in the middle.

Monkey bread is one of my husband's childhood favorites, so he ate nearly the entire loaf up fast.  I once made monkey bread for my family when they were helping us move into our house, and they thought it was the greatest thing, well, since sliced bread.  It always impresses, and it's fun to pull off the little rolls of cinnamon-caramel goodness.