Cinnamon Sugar Monkey Bread Bites

Nora one month. She holds her head up now with the wobbling determination of someone who has decided vertical is preferable and is working on the technique. She holds eye contact for ten, fifteen seconds at a time. Liam was the same at one month and also was not the same; she's quieter about her demands than he was, which is not a comment on her intensity but on her methods. He announced his needs at volume. She escalates in stages, each stage a different communication: a sound, then louder, then expression, then the full event. She's building a repertoire.

The first sourdough loaf came out of the oven on Saturday and it was, improbably, excellent. I say improbably because starter requires attention and patience and the last month has had limited supply of both, but the bread didn't know that. Crisp crust, open crumb, the specific satisfaction of something fermented and risen. Liam ate a piece warm with butter and said "good bread Mama" with the sincerity I've come to trust from him as a food critic. Sean ate three slices standing over the counter.

I'm thinking about work. Not because I want to go back early—I don't, I have eight more weeks of leave—but because I've been listening to the hospital updates through my phone and I know what the floor is managing and I'm not there and the absence is its own kind of weight. The patients are there. My colleagues are there. I'm here, which is where I should be, with Nora at one month and Liam making drawings at the kitchen table and the sourdough starter on the counter breathing its slow yeast breath.

The sourdough is a slow project, a days-long conversation with yeast and flour that I’m learning to have even when the timing is imperfect — but there are afternoons when Nora is finally down and Liam is at the table asking for something sweet and I need a win that doesn’t require a 48-hour starter. These cinnamon sugar monkey bread bites are that win. They’re pull-apart and buttery and designed for small hands, and when Sean came in from the garage and ate half the pan without sitting down, I thought: yes, this is the other kind of bread this house needs right now.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 18 minutes | Total Time: 28 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 cans (7.5 oz each) refrigerated biscuit dough
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish or a standard muffin tin with butter or nonstick spray.
Cut the dough. Open biscuit cans and separate dough. Cut each biscuit into quarters, rolling each piece into a rough ball with your hands — they don’t need to be perfect.
Make the cinnamon sugar coating. In a medium bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Toss the dough balls in the mixture in batches until well coated, then arrange them in the prepared pan in a single layer (or muffin cups).
Make the butter sauce. In a small bowl, stir together the melted butter, brown sugar, and vanilla until the sugar is mostly dissolved. Pour the mixture evenly over the coated dough pieces.
Bake. Bake for 16—18 minutes, until the tops are deep golden and the sauce is bubbling up around the edges. The centers should be fully cooked through with no raw dough visible.
Cool briefly and serve warm. Let rest in the pan for 5 minutes — the sauce will thicken slightly as it cools. Serve directly from the pan and let everyone pull apart their own pieces.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cinnamon Sugar Monkey Bread Bites — The Bread That Feeds Everyone At Once