Monkey Bread

Steps

1. Knead10 min
   dough: flour + yeast + warm milk + 4 tbsp butter + 1/4 cup sugar + egg + salt
   • flour
   • yeast
   • milk
   • butter
   • sugar
   • egg
   • cinnamon
   to a soft, slightly tacky enriched dough — the cinnamon-roll family's dough doing a different job; the canned-biscuit shortcut is named, works, and tastes like its decade
2. Proof60 min
   covered, until doubled
   • brown sugar
   the single rise that separates the versions — while it goes, the stations set up: melted butter in one bowl, cinnamon + remaining sugar in another, and the caramel (remaining butter melted with the brown sugar + vanilla) standing by
3. Prep15 min
   dough pinched to walnut balls, dipped, rolled, piled
   • pecans
   the dough torn into ~40 rough balls — rough on purpose, the craggy surfaces hold more sugar — each dipped in butter, rolled in cinnamon sugar, and tumbled loosely into a buttered bundt with pecans scattered through, the caramel poured over the pile — loosely is the word: the balls need room to rise into each other, which is what makes it pull apart instead of slice
4. Bake35 min
   350°F, until deep brown and bubbling at the edges, ~30 min after a short second rise
   twenty minutes of second rise in the pan, then baked until the top is deep brown and the caramel bubbles up the sides — the center ball is the doneness test: if the top pulls away gummy, foil on and five more minutes
5. Rest10 min
   EXACTLY ten, then flipped onto a plate
   the upside-down law, verbatim from the pineapple entry: sooner is molten collapse, later is welded caramel — ten minutes, one flip, and the caramel-lacquered dome lands whole; served warm, eaten with hands, gone before it cools, which is the only serving note monkey bread has ever needed