Pizza Monkey Bread

For this month's 'Home Baker's Challenge' we are making Bread. Manjula of Desi Fiesta is the host for this month and she chose 4 different breads for trying. After deliberating on which one to choose, I finally ended up making a quite simple, but super tasty Pizza Monkey Bread. I hope to make the others on the challenge too sometime.

Monkey Bread is usually a sweet, sticky, gooey bread served for breakfast in the US. I went with a savory pizza flavor this time and used a pizza crust for the bread. The bread was so soft and fluffy and tasted great when dipped with pizza sauce/ marinara sauce. To make life easy, you could also use store bought pizza dough and make this monkey bread in a jiffy.

This bread is fun to make with kids. They can help in 'hiding'/ rolling cheese inside the little bread balls and they'll love breaking the bread apart and dunking into pasta sauce. This is definitely a must-try bread that is fun to make!!

I only used half of the bread dough to make monkey bread since I was making this for my son and myself. I froze half of the dough to use later after the first rise. I baked monkey bread in a small loaf pan (6"x4"). Use a large bundt pan or couple of larger loaf pans (9"x5") if you are using the entire bread dough.

Ingredients:
For the Bread: You can skip making this step and use store bought pizza dough for a quick and easy monkey bread.
All purpose flour - 3cups
Salt - 1¼tsp
Pizza Dough flavor - 2tbsp (optional)
Instant Yeast - 2tsp
Warm Water - 7/8 - 1 1/8 cups (Use the lesser amount in summer and more amount in drier winter weather)
Sugar - 2tsp

Herb Oil: Double below ingredients if making monkey bread with all of the above dough.
Extravirgin Olive Oil - 2tbsp
Italian Seasoning - 2tsp
Grated Cheese - 2tbsp (I used cheddar, but mozzarella or any other good melting cheese will work)
Salt & Pepper - to taste

Other Ingredients:
Mozzarella cheese - ½cup, cubed
Marinara Sauce - for serving (homemade or store-bought--I used Trader Joe's Traditional Marinara Sauce)

Method:

• Make the Bread dough: Whisk yeast and sugar into warm water. Set aside for 5 minutes until frothy.
• Combine all the other ingredients for the dough in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl. Add the yeast mixture and using the dough hook knead the dough into a smooth and pliable dough, about 5-7 minutes in the stand mixer or about 9-11 minutes by hand.
• Let rise covered in a greased bowl for 45minutes to 1 hour or until doubled in volume.
• In the meantime combine all the ingredients for the herb oil in a small bowl.
• Gently deflate the dough and divide it into 32 small balls (or 16 balls if using only half of the dough). Place 1 mozzarella cube in the center of each ball and cover it completely. Drop each ball into the herb oil and roll it around to coat all sides.
• Place the rolled balls in the greased baking pan and pour any left over herb oil evenly on top. Cover lightly with a plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes - 1 hour or until well puffy.
• Around the end of the rising cycle, Preheat the oven to 375°F.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes (22-26 minutes for smaller loaf) until lightly browned on top. Cool for 5 minutes before removing out of the pan to cool completely.