Monkey Bread Muffins

All three of my kids are very different eaters.

Ethan, true to his 90-year-old-man nature, only likes plain, bland food. He does like cinnamon a lot, which is racy for him, and he has a wicked sweet tooth...again, for plain types of candy/chocolate/cookies/cakes.

Laney is easiest to please, but her tastes change like the wind...which is why I worry about our life together during her teenage years. If her tastes in everything else change as quickly as her food tastes, we are in trouble...and one of us may not make it out alive.

Sam, finally, is a pretty good eater, but he doesn't love to eat, so I often wonder how he survives. He rarely eats a full meal, and he really prefers to eat whatever I am eating.

For example, we had a picnic in Falls Park yesterday before going to The Children's Museum. Everybody picked their sandwich. Ethan, who doesn't like sandwiches, will only eat a Nutella sandwich, which is really more like dessert on bread, but whatever. He also eats broccoli (no stems, only the heads), so I figure it all works out. Laney loves my homemade peanut butter, so that was what she chose. Easy enough. Sam chose bread and cheese.

NOT a cheese sandwich, for the record.

"Look, Mommy, it's like this. I want bread separate. And cheese separate. And then another bread separate."

It's a good thing he is cute and his "grown up" voice (that he uses from time to time when I don't understand his bizarre instructions) makes me laugh because otherwise, he would stay in trouble a lot more than he does.

So. I bagged up two pieces of bread and a piece of cheese still in the wrapper, just like he ordered.

Once we sat down to eat, he was more interested in my salad than his sandwich. That is how Sam rolls...even if we have the exact same thing on our plates. For those of you that know me well, you know I have a cardinal I-don't-share-food rule, so this baby bird method of eating is sometimes painful.

Anyway, sometimes, I happen upon things that all three of them love. Monkey bread is one of those things. I don't make it often because it is full of sugar and other yumminess that isn't great for a body in large doses, but when I do, it's like Christmas at the breakfast table.

A while back, I pinned a recipe for monkey bread muffins. Because I hate to make the same things over and over, I usually check my Pinterest boards for menu ideas...which probably would help my husband understand why menu-planning and grocery list making takes me an entire morning and several cups of coffee.

When I read the recipe, it involved sweetened condensed milk, which is decidedly un-monkey-bread-like but is one of my secret weaknesses, so I thought I would give them a try this week sometime for breakfast.

Things I learned:
1) My muffin pans are not the same size. I had to adjust the amount of dough because 3 pieces was too much per cup in one of my pans.
2) 1/2 of a pat of butter does not mean 1/2 of the pat marked on the butter wrapper. I figured this out about halfway through when I realized I needed to put butter on top, too, but had already breezed through the butter called for in the recipe. One of the pats marked on the butter wrapper should make
about three (1 teaspoon) pats.
3) You will need either 2 small cans of sweetened condensed milk (which will give you leftovers) or a larger-than-normal can. I used about a can and a half for the glaze on 23 muffins.
4) This recipe doesn't make 24 muffins, which I knew up front because the recipe serving size said so, and I can read. For all of my genius, though, I still put butter and cinnamon, and sugar in the 24th cup. I need to pay attention; I salvaged the giant butter pat (cut before I realized #2) and most of the cinnamon and sugar, but if I hadn't, I would have had one sticky mess in there.

Monkey Bread Muffins
From: Blogger Amy @ Our Everyday Dinners: http://www.oureverydaydinners.com/2011/08/monkey-bread-muffins.html
Makes 22-23 muffins

2 cans Grands-style biscuits
1 1/2 sticks of butter
Cinnamon
Sugar
1 1/2 cans sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put about 1/2 of a pat of butter in each muffin cup. This is about 1/2 of a teaspoon (not tablespoon). You don't need to grease the muffin cups because of the butter you put in the cup and on top of the muffin before you bake it.

Sprinkle about a teaspoon of sugar into each cup. Then sprinkle a little cinnamon in. The recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon per cup, but I didn't bother to measure. I just shook some in.

Cut biscuits into quarters. Place 3 biscuit quarters into each muffin cup. I laid the pieces down flat...kind of made a layer of dough on top of the sugar/cinnamon/ butter mixture...which kept them from overflowing.

On top of each muffin, put about 1/2 of a pat of butter, and then sprinkle 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar and another shake or so of cinnamon.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until muffins are golden brown and butter is bubbling. Take muffins out of the oven; immediately, spoon about a tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk over the top of each. Sweetened condensed milk is one of my favorite things, so I was very generous with my glazing...but this is what makes them so yummy.

*This is also not the time to check out the calorie or fat content on the milk can.

Let them cool as much as possible before serving. My batch came out of the muffin pans pretty easy, but don't skip the whole clean-up-immediately step. That glaze is like cement when it dries!!



Let me say that my kids all ate multiples, Keith loved them, and a visitor (who shall remain nameless) traded some homemade salsa and strawberry jam for 2 muffins for the road. Happy eating!!