Monkey Bread. (Gluten/Dairy Free with directions to make refined sugar free.)

By msweeney

Ingredients

• Caramel Sauce:
• 1/2 Cup Butter (dairy or nondairy) OR Coconut Oil
• 1 Cup Coconut Palm Sugar or Sucanat or regular brown sugar ( granulated maple sugar may work too!)
• 1/4 cup heavy coconut cream (skimmed from the top of a chilled can) OR Mimiccream (nut cream) or regular heavy cream.
• Biscuits:
• 4 packed cups of blanched almond flour.
• 1 packed Cup Starch (Potato or Tapioca Starch).
• 1 Tsp. Salt
• 1 1/4 Tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 Cup Butter (dairy or nondairy), Bacon Lard or Shortening.
• 4 Large Eggs
• 2 Tsp. Lemon Juice or Vinegar
• 1/2 Cup Granulated Organic Cane Sugar or Sucanat or Coconut Palm Sugar or Granulated Maple. (xylitol & Erithritol might work I haven't tested them out yet)
• 2 Tsp. Cinnamon.

Details

Servings 1
Adapted from brittanyangell.com

Preparation

Step 1

Grain Free Monkey Bread. (Gluten/Dairy Free with directions to make refined sugar free.) - Brittany Angell

Grain Free Monkey Bread. (Gluten/Dairy Free with directions to make refined sugar free.)

Grain Free Monkey Bread. (Gluten/Dairy Free with directions to make refined sugar free.)

Don't know what Monkey Bread is? That needs to change. Think: Biscuit dough rolled in cinnamon and sugar and then placed into a bundt pan. You finish things off with drizzling caramel all over the top and then you bake- and it becomes a masterpiece. The outside of each piece reminds me of a perfectly fried donut- while the inside is soft and biscuit like. The flavor is perfect, the texture is perfect. This monkey bread will make Christmas morning an experience that your family will never forget. If you can have eggs, and the other ingredients that I call for

MAKE IT.

Make your own nut or seed flour using any other nut/seed of choice. I suspect that Hazelnut, Macadamias, Cashews or Sunflower seeds turned into flour would all taste great! To do this simply

run the nut or seed in a high powdered blender or coffee grinder until you have a super fine flour

Coconut flour WILL NOT WORK. (It never ever works as a replacement for Almond Flour!) And any of the grain based flours will NOT work.

: Grain Free baked goods are low in starch typically.. The starch content in flour is what "soaks up, and drinks" the moisture in baked goods when they are in the oven so that they cook through. Almond flour is low in starch and therefore only soaks up very small amounts of moisture. (the other nut/seed flours are the same: low starch, little moisture absorption). Eggs are a magical ingredient because not only do they provide liquid to recipes to create the right texture of batter, but they also completely "dry up and harden" when in the oven. NO other egg replacer has the ability to mimic this "sucking up moisture and drying out" sort of action to the extent that eggs do. You will notice in this recipe I have not called for any liquid outside of the eggs. The eggs are used in the biscuits to make the batter the right texture and also because they gurantee that the biscuits are going to cook through in the oven. Additionally, to grain free baked goods eggs provide lift and rise which is otherwise virtually impossible to obtain. Almond flour is very heavy, and baking powder/soda on their own don't have enough oomph to give Almond flour a lift. This is why it is hard to find recipes that are both grain and egg free. Using regular egg replacers (such as a Chia "egg" , Flax "egg", or applesauce) work great in recipes that use flours that are high in starch - this high starch content will gurantee that they cook through, and that they will still rise well in the oven- even without any eggs. Moral of the story- if you can't have eggs, use a basic gluten free/ egg free biscuit recipe instead! (I have an incredible recipe in my first cookbook- the

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a non-stick bundt pan.

Make the caramel. Combine all caramel ingredients (butter, sugar and cream) into a heavy bottomed sauce pan. Turn on stove and heat until the mixture has started to gently boil and the sugar has melted (it should look like a thin caramel sauce- this will only take a few minutes). Turn off stove and set aside.

Make the biscuits: In a large bowl combine the Almond Flour, Starch, Salt and Baking Soda. Cut in the butter until it becomes pea sized.

In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and lemon juice. Pour the mixture into the big bowl of flour. Gently stir until it just barely becomes a dough that holds together well.

In a small bowl or in a plastic bag mix together the sugar and cinnamon. This will be use to roll the biscuit dough in.

Take tablespoon sized pieces of biscuit dough and gently roll them into balls. Roll the dough in the bowl of sugar (or shake it in a plastic bag- 1 or 2 pieces at a time). Until the dough is fully covered in sugar and cinnamon. Line the sugar coated dough in the bottom of the bundt pan. Continue with all the dough and slowly layer it in a circle. You will end up with 2-3 rows of monkey bread bites stacked on top of each other when you are finished.

After all of the biscuit pieces are in place- pour the caramel sauce evenly over the biscuit dough (letting it seep into all of the nooks and crannies).

Place the pan into the oven (on the middle shelf) and bake 45-50 minutes. Cover the pan with tinfoil after the first 25 minutes of baking (to prevent the top from burning.) After the full time in the oven- remove and allow to cool 20 minutes.