Healthy Monkey Bread {Vegan}

What’s your Christmas morning tradition? When we were kids, we were always so excited Christmas morning we could never sleep. My parents actually got into the habit of setting the clocks back an hour so we didn’t wake them up at 5 in the morning to see if Santa came. When it was finally time to wake up (aka after 5 am), we’d jump out of bed, and run towards the tree to see if Santa and the reindeers ate the snacks we left out for them the night before and if there were pressents magically under the tree!

We’d first open our stockings and were allowed to open a couple gifts from under the tree while my mom baked her Homemade Monkey Bread in the oven. The entire house would honestly smell like a slice of cinnamon-sugar bread-making heaven – and let me tell you, Christmas morning just isn’t Christmas morning unless there’s Mom’s Homemade Monkey Bread! And when it was time for breakfast, we’d all dash to the table, my Mom’s Homemade Monkey Bread is a treat that only comes around once a year and it’s easy to say, nobody can ever resist it! Every year, we manage to polish off multiple pans of Monkey Bread and then some. Trust me when I say, this sweet, cinnamon-sugar-y, doughy,  pull-apart bread is simply irresistible. 😉

For those of you who don’t know, Monkey Bread is basically a Sweet Cinnamon-Sugar Pull Apart Bread. Kind of like cinnamon buns in ball form, stacked on top of each other into a tower of gooey cinnamon-sugary goodness. My mom uses a traditional French-Canadian recipe passed down through my great-great aunt and as much as I love that Monkey Bread, the moment I saw the ingredients, I knew I was up to the challenge of making a healthier version!

In this Healthy Monkey Bread I managed to swap out all the butter in the recipe in replacement for applesauce and a very little bit of coconut oil (you can also substitute a vegan butter spread). I did reduce the sugar a bit, but just as a “fair warming” there is more sugar in this Healthy Monkey Bread than most of my healthy recipes but this is a Christmas morning treat, remember? 😉 And sometimes a special occasion calls for a little bit of extra sugar, amiright? I use brown cane sugar in all my recipes because it’s less refined than plain old regular sugar – plus it adds a delicious chewy element to baked goods that is hard to resist. If you don’t have brown cane sugar on hand, like in all my recipes, you can always substitute light brown sugar.

And did I mention this bread is as fun to make as it is to eat!? If you are experienced in bread making or if you are new to the bread making world like I am, don’t let the addition of yeast scare you! If you need a visual reminder on how to knead bread – this video tells you everything you’ll ever need to know! You can make the dough for this Healthy Monkey Bread the night before Christmas morning and allow it to rise overnight or on the day of if you account for the first 1 hour rise in a warm space.

After the first rise, punch your dough and start ripping off little pieces of it and rolling it into little balls. Here’s the fun part – first, dip the dough balls into the milk and applesauce mixture followed by a generous dip into the cinnamon sugar bowl! Start stacking the balls on top of each other in a bundt pan until all your dough is used up. After about 20 minutes in a warm-ish space – your dough balls should have risen to the top of the pan! See, bread making is so much fun! This is your second rise. {see top photo}

This Healthy Monkey Bread also has a built in Apple Caramel Sauce that you pour 3/4 of it on before baking and the rest on just before it’s perfectly baked. This ensures your Healthy Monkey Bread is super moist, soft and gooey with a delicious caramel covered coating 🙂 {see bottom photo}

Once your Healthy Monkey Bread has cooled for a couple of minutes, invert it onto a plate and dig in! I made this last Sunday and both J and I couldn’t get over how good it was. We shared some with the neighbors, but somehow the entire pan of Healthy Monkey Bread slowly disappeared by the end of the day – I told you it’s irresistible!

This Healthy Monkey Bread is:

Soft.
Sweet.
Filled with cinnamon sugar goodness.
Gooey.
Fun to eat.
Caramel coated to perfection.
Perfect for Christmas morning.
Or any good excuse for a holiday brunch 😉

If you do try this Healthy Monkey Bread or any other recipes of mine, I love hearing about it! Insta or Tweet it to me (@cearaskitchen with hashtag #cearaskitchen) or Facebook it to me via the Ceara’s Kitchen Facebook Page!