Bananas Foster Monkey Bread #BreadBakers

Bananas Foster Monkey Bread takes everyone's favorite pull apart loaf (usually made with bread dough balls rolled in sugar) to a whole new holiday level with bananas and rum. Put one of these guys on your party table and watch it disappear.

Bananas Foster is a special dessert that was created and served first, table-side, at Brennan’s in New Orleans. About five years ago, I made Bananas Foster Muffins for a special Muffin Monday, just as we moved in Dubai because that was kind of a special occasion.

Today is the exact anniversary of our arrival, which is what made me think of Bananas Foster again for this month’s Bread Bakers theme of pull apart breads. After all, most monkey breads have sugar and cinnamon. Some have a sticky toffee or caramel glaze. Bananas Foster sauce has the added bonus of rum, perfect for a celebration.

The dough is adapted from the King Arthur Flour monkey bread recipe.

Bananas Foster Monkey Bread

Ingredients
For the bread dough:
1/2 cup or 120ml lukewarm water
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 cups or 250g flour

For the Bananas Foster sauce:
2 medium bananas
6 tablespoons or 85g butter, plus more for buttering the pan
1 cup or 200g dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons rum

To assemble the bananas foster monkey bread: 1 cup or 125g chopped pecans

Method
To make the dough, put your sugar, yeast and warm water in your mixing bowl. Leave to prove for a few minutes. When the bubbles begin forming, mix in oil, egg and salt.

Add 1 cup or 125g of the flour, stirring to blend. Add in the rest of the flour, mixing well. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

Knead the dough by hand or machine until it is stretchy and smooth. Form the dough into a ball and lightly grease your mixing bowl. Put the dough ball in the greased bowl and cover the bowl with cling film.

Leave in a warm place for 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

While the dough is rising, you can make your bananas Foster sauce.

Cut your bananas into about 1/2 in or 1 cm slices.

Combine the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon for the sauce in a skillet. Place the pan on a low heat, and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar dissolves. Add the bananas to the pan.

Turn the heat up a little, until the melted sugar is bubbling slowly. When the banana sections soften, carefully add the rum.

Tip the pan slightly so the rum vapor will ignite. It’s a little scary and happens quite suddenly so do be prepared. The flame burns off the alcohol and also helps thicken the sauce.

Remove from the heat. Set aside and allow to cool. This makes about 1 3/4 cups or 414ml of sauce. We are going to use about 1 1/4 cups or 295ml in the monkey bread and save the balance for pouring on the bread when it’s served.

Thoroughly grease a 10 or 12-cup nonstick Bundt pan with butter and sprinkle in a small handful of the chopped pecans. Set aside a handful of the pecan for decorating the bread after it bakes.

Once the first rise of the dough is finished, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Press it down gently then cut the dough into about 20-23 balls.

Drizzle some of the bananas foster sauce into the bottom of the Bundt pan.

Add in about 8 or 9 dough balls. Top with more sauce then a sprinkle of pecans.

Add more dough balls, then more sauce and more pecans, until the dough balls are all used.

Cover the pan with cling film and leave in a warm place for 45 minutes or until the bread has doubled.

When rising time is almost up, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Remove the cling film and bake the bread for 25 minutes.

Remove the bread from the oven.

Turn it out onto a serving pan, scraping any sticky topping left behind in the pan and spooning it onto the bread.

Warm the remaining sauce if it’s not pourable anymore and then drizzle it over the monkey bread. Top with reserved pecans.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to this month's host, Kelly of Passion Kneaded for this fabulous theme! Check out all the pull apart breads, both savory and sweet, that we’ve baked for you this month.

• Apple Pecan Streusel Pull Apart Bread from Hostess at Heart
• Bananas Foster Monkey Bread from Food Lust People Love
• Cheese Stuffed Garlic Pull Apart Bread from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Cheesy Pesto Pull Apart Bread from Spill the Spices
• Christmas Tree Bread from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Chrysanthemum Bread from Ambrosia
• Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread from Cook's Hideout
• Coffee Pull-Apart Bread from Passion Kneaded
• Coriander Garlic Pull Apart Bread from The Mad Scientist's Kitchen
• Cranberry Chutney Pull Apart Bread from Spiceroots
• Garlic Pull Apart Bread from Palatable Pastime
• Laadi Pav or Pull Apart Rolls from Sneha's Recipe
• Overnight Monkey Bread Pudding from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Paneer Pesto Pull Apart Rolls from Veena's Vegnation
• Pull-Apart Dill Bread from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Pumpkin, Garlic, and Sage Pull Apart Bread from Baking Sense
• Pumpkin Spice Latte Pull-Apart Bread from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Savory Breakfast Monkey Bread from Sonlicious

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin it! 

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Banana Pecan Bundt with Bananas Foster Frosting #BundtBakers

Mashed bananas and cream cheese add moisture and flavor to this wonderfully nutty Bundt cake, topped with rum-spiked bananas Foster frosting. 

Thanks to our creative host, Shilpi from Simply Veggies, this month’s Bundt Bakers theme is fruit and nuts. Any fruit or combination of fruits AND any nut or combination of nuts, but the Bundt has to have both fruit and nuts. My mind was swirling with the infinite possibilities, but I finally settled on bananas because there is hardly anything that adds both flavor and moistness to a cake like mashed ripe bananas, unless it’s softened cream cheese. And, with the two together, magic happens. My favorite nut is always pecan, so I added a generous helping of those. And then, the bananas and pecans reminded me of a muffin I made a couple of years back, based on that famous New Orleans dessert, Bananas Foster, and before I knew it, I was making a sort of Bananas Foster frosting too, but with added cream cheese. I hope you are going to like this one as much as I did!

Ingredients
3/4 cup or 170g butter, softened
8 oz or 227g cream cheese, softened (13 Kiri squares, if that’s your brand, like it is mine here in Dubai.)
1 1/2 cups or 300g sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups or 375g all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (1 1/4 pounds or 570g unpeeled bananas, about 4 medium)
2 cups or 210g chopped pecans, toasted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Bananas Foster frosting:
2 tablespoons or 45g butter
1/3 cup, packed, or 66g dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch salt
1 medium banana
2 tablespoons rum
1/4 cup or 26g chopped pecans
2 oz or 26g cream cheese (4 1/3 Kiri squares)


Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease and flour a large Bundt pan. (I like to use the baking spray that has flour in it. The pan is my Nordic Ware Anniversary Bundt pan.) Add a 1/4 cup or about 26g of the chopped toasted pecans to the pan. Set aside.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl. In another smaller bowl, mash your ripe bananas with a fork.

In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, beat butter, cream cheese and sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy and light. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well in between.

Add in the flour and mix well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add in the mashed bananas and the vanilla. Beat again for about one minute.

Fold in the rest of the pecans.

Spoon the batter into your prepared Bundt pan and bake in your preheated oven for about 50-60 minutes, tenting the top with foil if it looks like it’s browning too quickly near the end. Do not do what I did which was to turn the oven off when the timer rang and forget to take it out for another 10 minutes! As you can see from the photos, it turned out a little darker than it should have.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes before  turning the banana pecan Bundt out of the pan. Leave to cool completely before frosting.

To make the bananas Foster frosting, melt your brown sugar and butter in a small skillet, along with the pinch of salt and cinnamon.

Chop your banana into small pieces and add them to the pan.

Cook for several minutes on a low to medium flame, stirring occasionally. When the mixture has thickened a little, add in the rum and stir well.

Add in the chopped pecans and stir again. Remove from the heat leave to cool for a few minutes.

Now add in the cream cheese, cut or broken into small pieces. Stir until it’s all melted and no little white bits are showing. I must confess that I prefer the color of the frosting without the cream cheese because it’s a nice warm shiny brown and the cream cheese dulls it, but the flavor is great!

Spoon the frosting on your cooled Bundt cake and spread it around so a little slides down the sides.

Enjoy!

Dark still delicious!

• Almond Rhubarb Bundt Cake from Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Aloha Bundt Cake from Olivia at Liv for Cake
• Apple Pecan Bundt Cake from Bea and Mara at I Love Bundt Cakes
• Apricot-Almond Bundt Cake from Cali at Cali’s Cuisine
• Banana Peanut Butter Bundt Cake from Jana at Jenny and Sweets
• Banana Monkey Bundt Cake from Los Chatos Chefs at Los Chatos Chefs
• Banana Pecan Bundt with Bananas Foster Frosting from Stacy at Food Lust People Love
• Banana Split Bundt Cake from Andrea at Adventures in All Things Food
• Blueberry Cherry Coffee Cake with Walnut Streusel from Lauren at Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Cherry and Almond Bundt Cake from Lara at Tartacadabra
• Cherry and Nuts Bundt Cake from Diego at La Mejor Manera de Hacer
• Cherry and Sliced Almond Mini Bundt Cakes from Teri at The Freshman Cook
• Cherry Pistachio and Honey Bundt Cake from Ethel at eating in instead
• Cinnamon Raisin Coffee Cake from Vonnie at My Catholic Kitchen
• Eggless Mango Almond Bundt Cake from Shilpi at Simply Veggies
• Generra Bundt Cake from Kelly at Passion Kneaded
• Lemon Lime Pistachio Bundt Cake from Rocío at kidsandchic
• Orange and Pecan Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache from Deepti at Baking Yummies
• Orange Blossom Honey Nut and Blueberry Cake from Anshie at Spice Roots
• Peach and Pecan Bundt from Catherine at Living The Gourmet
• Peach Coffee Cake from Julie at Eat, Drink, Be Mighty
• Pineapple-Pecan Bundt Cake from Kathya at Basic N Delicious
• Pineapple Sundae Bundt Cake from Colleen at Faith, Hope, Love & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Pomegranate and Pistachio Kugelhopf from Laura at Baking in Pyjamas
• Roasted Banana and Black Walnut Bundt Cake from Terri at Our Good Life
• Summer Fig Bundt from Margaret at Tea and Scones
• Vegan Orange Ripple Rhubarb Cake with Pistachio Sauce from June at How to Philosophize with Cake

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our of lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

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Bananas Foster Muffins #MuffinMonday

Banana muffins filled and topped with a bananas Foster sauce of brown sugar, rum and pecans! These are a decadent breakfast or a handheld dessert!

We have entered the MuffinMonday Holiday Series where Anuradha from Baker Street has challenged us to not only bake some great muffins, but to kick them up a notch into FESTIVENESS.  I am all excited about this because, with the move to Dubai, I have not spent much time thinking about Thanksgiving or Christmas and I am counting on this challenge to put me in the MOOD, baby.

Our muffin recipe this week is traditional banana bread from Food Network.  So, in the spirit of festivity, I decided to make a banana muffin inspired by the New Orleans classic Bananas Foster, originally created by Chef Paul for Brennan’s Restaurant.  If you are not familiar with it, Brennan’s is the sort of restaurant where people celebrate Special Occasions (And, yes, the capitalization was deliberate!  Those kinds of Occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries, graduations and even engagements.) and Bananas Foster is their most popular dessert.  The wonderful caramelized, rum-infused banana sauce is supposed to be served over vanilla ice cream.  I have added chopped pecans and folded it through the muffin batter, then saved a little for a topping.

I am still baking in the serviced apartment kitchen here in Dubai, but the good news is that all our appliances are being delivered and installed shortly, so by the time you read this, we will be in our new home.  Then my helper can join us once more.  Regular readers will know that means the Boxer dog, who stayed behind in Cairo having a puppy sleepover with his friend, Marley, until we were in the house and his paperwork could be completed.  It's only been a few days but I miss his fuzzy face.

Beso and his buddy, Marley.

Bananas Foster Muffins

Ingredients
For the Bananas Foster sauce:
3 tablespoons or 45g butter
1/2 cup or 100g dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 banana
3 tablespoons rum
3/4 cup chopped pecans

For the muffin:
1 ripe banana
1 large egg
1/3 cup or 70g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup or 60ml milk
3/4 cup or 170g granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.   Thoroughly butter a 12-cup muffin tin.  You can use muffin liners but some of the sticky caramel banana might end up staying stuck on them when they are removed.  Which would be a doggone shame.

Cut your sauce banana in about 1/2 in or 1 cm slices.

Combine the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon for the sauce in a flambé pan or skillet.

Place the pan on a low heat, and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar dissolves.

 Add the bananas to the pan.

Turn the heat up a little, until the melted sugar is bubbling slowly.

When the banana sections soften, carefully add the rum.  You are supposed to light the rum by tipping the pan, but I was working on an electric stove and a match did not do the trick.  Give it a try but don’t worry if your rum won’t light.

Remove from the heat and add in the chopped pecans.  Stir well.

Set aside and allow to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon for the muffin in a large bowl.

In another smaller bowl, mash the remaining banana and whisk in the egg and milk and melted butter.

Pour your wet mixture into your dry ingredients and stir gently until just mixed.  This should seem a bit dry.

Still in the pan, separate your caramel banana sauce into approximately, two-thirds and one-third.  No need to measure exactly.

Gently fold the two-thirds amount into the batter.   Divide between the prepared muffin cups.

See!  It got a lot wetter with the addition of the sauce.  It's all good. 

Top each with a share of the remaining caramel banana sauce.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for about five minutes in the muffin tin and them remove to a rack to finish cooling.

These are sticky and chewy and delicious.  A right celebratory muffin.

Enjoy!

Go ahead!  Take a bite!

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