Salted Caramel & Chai Spiced Sourdough Monkey Bread
So I can see how at first glance this recipe is going to seem utterly ridiculous. I know. But trust me when I tell you it isn’t all that bad. You can totally do it, especially if you make it over 3 days. And its totally worth it, too. The combo of salted caramel and chai spices is pretty amazing. Plus who doesn’t like warm, gooey, sugary, delicious little balls of bread?
I didn’t intend to make these cute little individual servings, I actually baked it in a bundt pan. But sometimes you just get too excited to be patient. One of the downsides of being a food blogger is you have got to have pretty pictures. And pretty pictures need natural lighting. Which goes away at 5:30 in the winter, if not before then. So this was a race to the finish, which would happen first – the sun go down or the monkey bread be cool enough to flip over and photograph. I was impatient, because obviously the sun was winning this race, so I went ahead and flipped the pan. And then sang a wonderful rendition of “London Bridge is Falling Down” while my little balls of monkey bread skittered all over my kitchen counter, leaving a sugared gooey trail in their wake. No matter, though, because food can still taste yummy even if it doesn’t look quite perfect! Its a good reminder that it’s a messy world we live in, but still beautiful!
Looking for other great sourdough sweet breakfast recipes? Try:
Salted Caramel and Chai Spiced Sourdough Monkey Bread
Ingredients
Monkey Bread
- 2 cups sourdough starter refreshed and bubbly
- 1 egg
- 4 cups flour
- 2 tsp salt
- 4 TBSP melted butter
- ¼ cup sugar
chai spice coating:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
- 1 vanilla bean seeds scraped
- 8 TBSP unsalted butter
salted caramel sauce:
- ¼ cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- ⅔ cup heavy cream
- 3 TBSP unsalted butter cut into pieces
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In the stand of your mixer, combine the starter, egg, salt, melted butter, sugar and 3 cups of your flour.
- Add more flour as necessary to form a ball of dough that cleans the sides of the bowl and is only slightly sticky.
- Switch to the dough hook and knead 10 minutes.
- Cover the bowl and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size (depends on your starter and temp of your house (6-8 hours). You can also place it in fridge overnight).
- Generously butter your bundt cake pan.
- In a medium bowl mix together the ingredients for the chai spice mixture (the sguar, and spices, save the butter for the next step) .
- Sprinkle some of the sugar/spice mixture in the bottom of the pan.
- In a small skillet over medium-low heat slowly melt the butter and allow to heat until browned, and smelly nutty.
- Pour into a bowl and set aside.
- Bring the dough back to the counter and divide into pieces about the size of ping pong balls.
- Roll each piece into a ball, dip in the brown butter and roll in the spice mixture
- Drop the rolls in the bundt pan and continue until all the dough is gone.
- Cover the bundt pan and allow to rise in a warm place 2-8 hours or until doubled in size again (you can also put this back in the fridge and allow to rest overnight. Just let it warm to room temperature for an hour before baking).
- Preheat your oven to 350 F.
- Make the salted caramel sauce by heating the water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
- Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil, and stop stirring. Let the mixture boil until it turns amber in color (4-10 minutes).
- Remove from the heat and whisk in the heavy cream (careful, it will bubble!).
- Whisk in the butter, vanilla and salt.
- Uncover the pan and pour the salted caramel sauce evenly over the monkey bread dough. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until the balls are nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into it comes out clean and "feels" done.
- Let the monkey bread cool in the pan for 15 minutes (or more!) before inverting it onto a serving platter.
Enjoy!
Nutrition
First of all, those little cups are adorable. I'd probably eat four of them. 🙂 Second of all, your flavor combination sounds OUTfreakingSTANDING. YUM!!
I have a wonderful picture in my head of you chasing those little balls of goodness! They look gorgeous as they are 🙂
Mmm salted caramel and chai. They do look really nice photographed in the individual dishes… but I'm hoping you ate the rest by pulling them off the pile 🙂
Jenni what a lovely recipe!
I love very much chai and these mono portion monkey breads must be ace with a nice ol' cuppa 🙂
Well done, I love so much all the different breads of this month!
Have a lovely day
Lou
I feel you with the winter light, right? But it worked out for the best cause those little ramekins are darling! And the flavor sounds amazing!
I would have thought they'd stick together with the sugar mix on them, that's strange. Good thing they tasted great no matter the architectural difficulty!
Spices and salted caramel? Amazing!
I think your monkey bread looks beautiful as is! Plus I love that flavor combination.
How cute are those mini breads! I do like the look of the 'art' on the plate though. And the flavour combination sounds delicious!
Mental image of frisky little sourdough balls making a break for it across the counter cracks me up, but what a great photographic save with individual portions in red ramekins. They DO sound yummy.
The bread looks and sounds wonderful! I love those cute little servings. I do the majority of my baking at night it seems, so I never have good lighting when my project is at its best. I can never seem to wait though.
Chai and caramel are my favorite combos. I've recently been experimenting with making homemade yogurt, and caramel and chai (and coffee) have been my go-to flavors. Will try this bread for sure! Thanks!
What a great story of how you transformed a potential disaster into something cute and enjoyable. Salted caramel and chai sourdough monkey bread sounds really good.
Love the ramekins! I agree, something can taste wonderful even if it doesn't look "perfect" Lynn @ Turnips 2 Tangerines