Vegan Banana Monkey Bread
Vegan banana monkey bread - this delicious pull-apart bread is sweet, sticky and utterly more-ish! Soft, banana flavoured yeast dough balls are coated in butter and cinnamon sugar and layered with chopped walnuts to make an impressive, and addictive, brunch recipe.
Servings 10 people
Ingredients
Dough:
- 250 g (1 cup) mashed overripe banana
- 160 ml (⅔ cup) unsweetened non-dairy milk (I use soy) lukewarm
- 50 g (¼ cup) caster or granulated sugar
- 550 g (4 ½ cups) white bread flour
- 8 g (2 ½ teaspoons) instant yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 60 g (¼ cup) vegan butter softened
To Assemble:
- 125 g (½ cup) vegan butter
- 250 g (1 ¼ cups) light brown soft sugar
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 100 g (3 ½ oz) walnuts or pecans roughly chopped
Instructions
- Mix together the mashed banana, milk and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.
- Add the flour, yeast and salt and mix on a low speed to form a rough dough. Continue mixing on a medium speed until the dough is smooth and stretchy.
- Add the butter and continue to knead on a medium speed until it is fully incorporated. It will look greasy and messy at first but it will come together eventally! Scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times as necessary.
- The dough should be sticky but not wet, should pull away from the sides of the bowl cleanly, and you should be able to stretch it to a thin windowpane without it tearing. If it is too wet you can add a bit more flour, a spoonful at a time. Be careful though, the dough should be a bit sticky.
- Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and set aside to rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours.
- When the dough has risen, thoroughly grease a 10-12 cup bundt tin. Melt the butter and set aside to cool. Mix together the sugar and spices in a wide, shallow bowl.
- Spoon 2 Tablespoons of melted butter, 3 Tablespoons of spiced sugar, and 4 Tablespoons of chopped nuts into the base of the tin.
- Punch down the risen dough and give it a brief knead to knock out the air. Tear small pieces of dough off and roll them into balls. You want to end up with around 55-65 balls of dough so keep them small.
- Working with a few at a time, dunk the balls of dough in the melted butter, then roll them in the spiced sugar, making sure that they are fully coated in both.
- Place the coated balls in the tin and repeat until you have a full layer of dough in the tin. Scatter over most of the rest of the chopped nuts, then continue to layer the coated dough balls in the tin.
- Once you have used all of the dough, scatter over the last of the nuts and drizzle over any remaining butter and spiced sugar.
- Cover the tin and leave to rise in a warm place for 45-60 minutes. It is ready to bake when the dough is puffy and springs back slowly, leaving a small indentation, if you gently poke it with a finger. If it springs back quickly and fills in completely then it needs to rise for longer.
- When the dough is nearly ready, preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/gas mark 4.
- Bake for 35-45 minutes until nicely browned and crisp on top. A probe thermometer inserted into the centre should reach at least 90°C/194°F.
- Allow to cool in the tin for about 20-30 minutes before turning it out onto a serving plate. You may need to give the tin a shake to release it. Best served warm and freshly baked.
Notes
- See post above for tips, details and step-by-step photos. If you have a question I may have already answered it in the post.
- As with all of my baking recipes I really do recommend using the metric measurements with a digital scale rather than the cup conversions. Cups are a wildly inaccurate measuring system and you will get far better, more consistent results using a scale, not to mention that it is also easier and less messy than cups!