Vegan Monkey Bread from Scratch – A Sweet and Easy Treat!

If you like cinnamon rolls and/or coffee cake, you’ll love this delicious vegan monkey bread, or pull-apart bread!

This sweet and cinnamon-packed treat makes a perfect breakfast, brunch, or dessert, on holiday mornings or anytime.

This recipe resembles cinnamon rolls, but takes much less time to make as you don’t need to elaborately roll out each individual serving.

Just dunk small pieces of dough in vegan butter, cinnamon, and sugar, throw them in a pan, and bake!

It’s also known as cinnamon roll bites, so you know it will be good!

If you’re new to vegan baking, this recipe is a great place to start. Since monkey bread doesn’t need eggs, the substitutions are very simple!

What is monkey bread?

A bread of many names, this dish also goes by pull-apart bread, sticky bread, golden dumpling coffee cake, bubble bread, pinch-me cake, monkey puzzle bread, and Christmas morning delights, among other names.

It originated as the Hungarian dessert arany galuska (golden dumpling). Hungarian immigrants brought it to the US, where Hungarian and Hungarian Jewish bakeries started selling it in the mid-twentieth century.

A 1972 Betty Crocker cookbook included a recipe for this dish called Hungarian Coffee Cake. As it grew in popularity, it became known as monkey bread (a dish which apparently was very similar but missing the cinnamon sugar, so the new Hungarian version essentially replaced it and took its name).

Nancy Reagan made this delightful treat a staple of her White House Christmas during the 1980s, which popularized the idea of serving monkey bread on Christmas morning.

You can read a brief history of monkey bread here.

Do I need a bundt pan?

No, I just used one because the fluted pan makes this recipe more photogenic.

Two bread loaf pans would work just fine and yield an equally delicious result!

You could also use a cake pan or a casserole dish if you don’t have bread pans.

Just check them after 25 minutes so they don’t burn, since the bread won’t be piled quite as high.

Storage and Freezing

This recipe will keep well on your counter for 3 days or in the fridge for 4-5 days in an airtight container.

You can also freeze it for a few months. Let it thaw in the fridge for a day.

For best texture, reheat in the oven rather than the microwave.

Can I prep these the night before?

Absolutely! If you make the dough and let it do its first rise (until double in size), you can store that dough in the fridge for a day or two until you’re ready to bake.

You could also assemble the monkey bread, cover it, a store the whole thing in the fridge overnight. Then, the next day, let it sit out at room temperature for 30-60 minute or so (at least while the oven pre-heats) before you go ahead with the baking.

Since we are skipping the second rise and starting with cold dough, it may take a few more minutes to bake.

Tips for the Best Vegan Monkey Bread

• Give your dough a warm place to rise.

Unless you live somewhere balmy, your dough might need a little help. I always struggled with recipes that say to let your dough rise at room temperature.

In the directions I share how to use a warm oven to help your dough rise, but as I shared in my baba al rum recipe, I often put a covered bowl of dough on a stool in front of a space heater, especially if we have one running anyway.

• Mix your yeast with a warm ingredient first

You’ll notice I direct you to mix the yeast with the warm melted coconut oil first, and then once it’s had a chance to activate, you can add in the cold almond milk.

While I have successfully made yeast bread with only cold liquids, warm liquids just give the yeast a better opportunity to activate so your dough will rise.

• Customize the size of your bites to your preference

Smaller pieces of dough will yield more crusty, crunchy results. On the other hand, larger pieces of dough will turn out more like a coffee cake.

Variations on this recipe

Try adding chopped apples or pecans as you layer the balls of dough in your pan for an extra special treat.

Instead of a sweet cinnamon bread, you can also make a savory monkey bread. Garlic and herb or cheesy bread also make excellent versions of this fun pull-apart bread. Simply skip the sugar in the dough, or add more flour in its place.

Similarly, you can make pizza monkey bread, jalapeño cheese monkey bread, orange zest with cardamom monkey bread, or just about any flavor combo you’d like in place of cinnamon sugar.

Some brands sell vegan biscuit dough in cans, so that can speed up this process quite a bit if you prefer.

For a more picture-perfect dessert, for the coating, you can first dip the balls of dough in melted vegan butter, and then roll them in a separate bowl of cinnamon sugar.

However, that sounded like an extra step to me, so I just mixed the coating all together and it turned out very well.

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What’s this about vegan sugar?

Many vegan baking recipes specifically call for vegan sugar. Raw sugars tend to be fine for vegans, but the filtration process for white cane sugar (table sugar) often utilizes bone char, commonly called natural carbon, from cow bones.

Coconut sugar and beet sugar, by contrast, are vegan.

Some cane sugars now are vegan, and the ones that are will usually say raw, natural, unrefined, or organic.

You’ll want to look for those same labels on confectioner’s sugar and brown sugar, as the same processing can apply, since they both start with a base of plain white cane sugar.

I started using Zulka brand Morena pure cane sugar several years ago, and noticed that it says “bone char free” on the packaging. It does make me wonder about what I was eating in the past, but you don’t know what you don’t know.

To be clear, standard table sugar doesn’t actually contain bone char, but since it is part of the process to make it, most vegans would not wish to consume it.

Here are some brands of vegan sugar you may find wherever you shop:

• Zulka Morena pure cane sugar
• Wholesome Sweeteners organic powdered confectioner’s sugar
• Trader Joe’s organic brown sugar

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Vegan Monkey Bread Ingredients

Before you begin, you will need:

Edible Ingredients

First, for the dough

• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups vegan milk (I used unsweetened almond milk)
• 1 7 gram packet of instant yeast
• 1/3 cup coconut oil or vegan butter, plus extra to grease the pan
• 1/4 cup vegan sugar
• 1 tsp salt

For the coating

• 3/4 cup vegan butter (I used Miyoko’s salted vegan butter)
• 1 cup brown sugar (I used dark)
• 2 Tbsp ground cinnamon

For the glaze (optional)

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp vegan milk (I used almond)

Tools and Equipment

• Stand mixer with a bread hook attachment (recommended), or a wooden spoon and some elbow grease
• Mixing bowls (preferably stainless steel or Pyrex rather than plastic as we will be letting the dough rise in the oven at low heat)
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Bundt pan or two bread loaf pans
• Foil or something to cover the dough as it rises in the oven

How to Make Vegan Monkey Bread

First, make the dough and let it rise once

1. To begin, melt the 1/3 cup of coconut oil or vegan butter in a microwave-safe dish, or on the stovetop.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, yeast, salt, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 cup of flour.
3. Once thoroughly combined, add in the milk and the rest of the flour, one cup at a time, until it is all evenly incorporated. The dough will be shaggy; this is fine. Keep kneading it until it forms one large ball. Cover.
4. Set your oven to pre-heat to 200° for two minutes. Once the time is up, turn off the oven. Quickly place the covered bowl of dough in the warm oven and shut the door. Let the dough rise for an hour or so, or until it has doubled in size.
5. While the bread is rising, grease your pan(s).

After that, make the coating and assemble your vegan monkey bread and let it rise again

1. After that, melt your 3/4 cup of vegan butter. Blend in the brown sugar and cinnamon (or keep the dry ingredients separate if preferred – see note above).
2. Once the dough is ready, pull off pieces of dough and roll them into balls. The smaller the balls, the crustier they will be, and the larger, the more cake-like. I aimed for large, heaping tablespoonfuls, but you really can’t mess this part up. As you roll each bite, roll it in the cinnamon sugar butter and place it in the greased pan. Once all the dough has been rolled, coated, and placed in the pan, pour any remaining cinnamon sugar butter over the dish and cover it.
3. After that, pre-heat your oven to 170° (or as low as it goes – 150° would be fine, too). Once it’s hot, turn off the oven and place the pan of monkey bread in the oven for another 30 minutes for its second rise.

Finally, bake and glaze if desired

1. While the dough is rising again, you can mix up your glaze (if you want one). I used a large measuring cup with a pouring spout as my mixing bowl. Combine your powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and vegan milk and stir until smooth.
2. Once the 30 minutes are up, remove the pan and pre-heat the oven to 350°. Once it’s hot, bake for 30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.
3. Then, remove the pan from the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes. Turn it out onto a cake stand, plate, or cutting board. If you wait too long to remove the cake from the pan, the cinnamon mixture may make it stick.
4. I poured my glaze on right away so it could melt and spread more evenly over the vegan monkey bread. (If you’d prefer white stripes of icing, you can wait until it cools.) Serve warm, and enjoy!

I hope you liked this vegan monkey bread recipe!