Pizza Monkey Bread

Recipe by Cook's Hideout

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...

Ingredients

• can pizza dough bread (You skip making this step and use store bought for a quick and easy monkey .)
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsps salt
• 2 tbsps pizza dough (flavor (optional))
• 2 tsp yeast (Instant)
• 0.88 - 1 1/8 cups Water (Warm (Use the lesser amount in summer and more amount in drier winter weather))
• 2 tsp sugar
• bread (Double below ingredients if making monkey with all of the above dough.)
• 2 tbsps olive oil (Extravirgin)
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 2 tbsp cheese (Grated - (I used cheddar, but mozzarella or any other good melting cheese will work))
• to taste Salt Pepper (&)
• (1.25l) fish stock (- , cubed)
• Marinara Sauce (- for serving (homemade or store-bought--I used Trader Joe's Traditional ))

Method

1. Make the Bread dough: Whisk yeast and sugar into warm water. Set aside for 5 minutes until frothy.
2. 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.
3. Let rise covered in a greased bowl for 45minutes to 1 hour or until doubled in volume.
4. In the meantime combine all the ingredients for the herb oil in a small bowl.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Around the end of the rising cycle, Preheat the oven to 375°F.
8. 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.

View the recipe instructions at Cook's Hideout