Cooking Mommy: Gorilla Bread

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Gorilla Bread

I made this a few weeks ago for church breakfast. It is a Paula Deen recipe, so really can it go wrong? It was devoured and everyone absolutely loved it! In fact, a few people said that I could make it every week and they wouldn't mind. :-) It's very much like monkey bread but on steroids, as someone put it. Or as someone else said, I basically took everything that is so sinful and delicious and put it into one dish. :-) It's not for those on a diet. :-) I did modify it a little bit, but mostly just on how to put it together, based on someone's review.

Ingredients
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
8oz cream cheese, softened
4 small 7oz cans refrigerated biscuit dough (originally called for 2 12oz cans, but I couldn't find that)
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a bundt pan. Mix the granulated sugar and cinnamon together. In a small sauce pan, melt butter and then add brown sugar and allow that to melt, stirring constantly. Set aside. Cream together cream cheese, vanilla, and 3 Tbsp of the sugar/cinnamon mix. Press the biscuits out with your fingers and spread a little of the cream cheese mixture in the middle of each of the biscuits. Fold the biscuits over and seal. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of nuts in bottom of bundt pan. Layer with half of the cream cheese filled biscuits. Sprinkle with 1/2 of the remaining cinnamon/sugar mixture. Pour half of the brown sugar and butter over the top. Layer with another 1/2 cup nuts, rest of the biscuits, cinnamon/sugar, and brown sugar and butter. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup nuts. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Place a plate on top and invert.

You can put this together the night before and refrigerate. Bake in the morning for 45 minutes since it will be cold from the fridge.

Optional: you can make into a monkey bread and leave the cream cheese and vanilla out. I made it like that another Sunday and it was still rant and raved about and totally eaten. It does make it a little easier to prep. Chop the biscuits into quarts before layering if you do it this way. You could also use a dairy free spread instead of butter and make it dairy free.

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Allergies and Intolerances

My son, Daniel previously had allergies to egg whites and peanuts. I am lactose intolerant. My nephews have allergies to many foods. I will try my best to label things to help those with allergies since I know it's difficult finding recipes sometimes when someone in your home has common food allergies. Make sure you check labels yourself. If it's marked soy-free or nut-free, it only means it doesn't have the soy or nut protein in it, not necessarily the oils. Look for dairy-free, egg-free, gluten/wheat-free, nut-free, and soy-free labels.

Egg replacements

If you need an egg free recipe, I have some great egg replacements. Now these really won't work in recipes that require a lot of eggs, like a meringue or cheesecake, but they do work well in most recipes I've ever tried.

Egg replacement #1: use 1 Tbsp ground flax seed and 3 Tbsp of water in place of 1 egg. Why this works? I don't know, but flax seed is extremely healthy for you, full of lots of omega fatty acids, so this is my preferred substitute.

Egg replacement #2: Boil 1 cup of water and 1 packet of unflavored gelatin together. In it's liquid state, use 3 1/2 Tbsp of this in place of 1 egg.

I have found sometimes one works better than the other. The flax seed seems to work better overall, I believe, but my mother-in-law made Christmas cookies with the gelatin and you couldn't even tell the difference.