Mmmmmmonkey Bread

I've been wanting to make the "Monkey Bread" recipe in the Bread Bible for a while now, but never had the appropriate occasion (enough people at a brunch/breakfast activity). Yesterday Jon and Cati had brunch with eight people, so I got my chance! And it was GOOD!

If you follow the timing in the recipe, there's pretty much no way you're going to have monkey bread any earlier than the middle of the afternoon. Since I think this is a breakfast dish, that's too bad. Also, the timing information at the beginning of the recipe is wildly misleading -- it takes at least two hours longer to make than what's listed up front -- so you can't draw any conclusions from that. My solution was to start the sponge on Saturday morning and let that mature until last afternoon, when I made the dough and did the first rise. The second rise was in the fridge overnight (I punched it down before going to bed). In the morning I warmed the dough up for an hour and then assembled the bread. Even starting at 7:00, the bread still wasn't ready until 11:00 or 11:30, but some of that was due to our cool kitchen (and some because it took me ~45 minutes to assemble the thing).

Still, the results, gooey with caramel and rum raisins and loaded with toasted pecans and butter was insanely good. I'll definitely do it again next time I get a chance.