Pumpkin Pecan Monkey Bread

As you may know, my coworkers and I have a devoted love for monkey bread, which is a scrumptious tear-apart bundt cake covered with gooey caramel.  It is hard to resist.  At first, I brought monkey bread into work in order to fit in with my coworkers, but it was such a hit that I still bring it in periodically as a surprise.  It was about time for another surprise.

I've always stuck to my original recipe that you can find here, but this time I decided to adapt the recipe to the season.  I am one of the thousands of girls that get overly excited for fall primarily because that means we get to eat pumpkin desserts.  So, I simply had to make pumpkin pecan monkey bread.

The monkey bread was so delicious that it didn't last long enough for me to bring it to work!  A few of my friends, who are notoriously picky eaters, gobbled it up.  (Don't tell my coworkers.)  I think that you can guess what I'll be making again this weekend!

Ingredients

•  3 (12 oz) cans of biscuit dough (not the flaky ones)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 heaping Tbsp pumpkin pie spice**
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

 ** If you don't have pumpkin pie spice on your spice rack, you can make it yourself by combining:

• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves

 Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350degF.

2.  Cut individual biscuits into quarters.  I find that the quarters are perfect bite-size pieces.

3.  Pour white sugar and pumpkin pie spice into a plastic bag.  Close bag and shake until combined.

4.  Place about 10-15 biscuit dough quarters into the plastic bag.  Close the bag and shake until well-coated with pumpkin pie spice sugar mixture.  Repeat until all quarters are coated.  Have a spontaneous dance party while you are shaking the bag.

6.  Layer nuts and coated biscuits in a bundt pan.  Start with pecans, add some biscuits, and then add more pecans.  I usually switch between nuts and biscuits three times.

7.  Melt butter, brown sugar, and pumpkin puree in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring often.  You don't want to cook the mixture until it completely turns into caramel because it is going to do more baking in the oven.

8.  Pour butter and brown sugar mixture on top of biscuits.

9.  Bake in 350degF oven for 45-50 minutes.  Enjoy the pumpkin pie smell that has now filled your house.

10.  Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

11. Flip the monkey bread over by placing your serving tray on top of the bundt pan and then rotating the whole assembly until the tray is on the bottom.  Give the top of the bundt pan a few taps to loosen the monkey bread from the pan.  Pumpkin monkey bread is a bit more sticky than normal monkey bread, but it should slide down onto the serving tray with a bit of tapping and wiggling.  Remove the bundt pan and watch the pumpkin caramel run down the sides of the monkey bread.  Yum!

Hopefully, you can exercise a little bit more restraint than my friends and I did.  I recommend putting the monkey bread in a covered container on the top shelf where nobody can see it.

Happy pumpkin season!