These Easy Monkey Bread Muffins with Banana Pudding are perfectly sized for individual fingers and only require 5 ingredients! Made with cinnamon, biscuit dough and banana pudding, they are an easy and fun party dessert to serve both kids and adults!
What Is Monkey Bread?
Monkey Bread Origin
I am not sure where monkey bread came from but it is very popular here in America. I first heard about it about 10 years ago and fell in love ever since!
A thick coating of brown sugar, cinnamon and butter all baked into little balls of dough that you eat with your fingers!? Drooling…
Monkey bread or as some call it “pull apart” bread, is called Monkey bread because of HOW we eat the bread.
With our fingers!
The typical monkey bread is made by throwing bite sized pieces of dough together with cinnamon, sugar and butter into a large bundt pan baked and served for all to PICK at with their fingers. The key word is PICK! Because that’s what monkeys do! They’re ‘pickers‘!
It is the ultimate bite sized party dessert for this reason which is obviously why I had to throw it here on the blog! 🙂
Here is an article that explains a little more about what monkey bread is.
How To Make Monkey Bread Muffins
Normal monkey bread recipes are baked in a bundt pan.
However, to make these portioned individual monkey bread “muffins”, first you need a MUFFIN TIN!
You can use a mini muffin tin or a regular sized muffin tin. The mini muffin tin will give smaller bite sized monkey breads great for kids. The larger tin will give you larger monkey breads that are better sized for adults. You will also need some muffin tin liners so that you can easily grab and take these with you at a party! These muffin tin liners are PERFECT for this recipe because of how large they are.
Once you have your tin and liners, you are ready to add you dough and bake your mini monkey breads!
Mini Monkey Bread Muffins With Biscuit Dough
I use store-bought canned biscuit dough for this monkey bread recipe. It makes this an easy and quick dessert that is hard to mess up!
What you need to do is simply open your canned biscuit dough and chop up each biscuit into bite sized pieces. Then add toss those pieces in the cinnamon, sugar and pudding mixture and bake!
Tips For Serving Your Monkey Bread Muffins
- If you are serving these for a group of people, I would recommend filling your muffins liners before guests arrive and store them in the fridge. Then just pop them in the oven when dessert time is near.
- They should sit about 5 minutes before serving, but don’t let them sit TOO long. These mini monkey breads definitely need to be served warm, when they are still nice and gooey!
- You should know that these monkey breads are meant to fall apart very easily so using the muffin liners will help them hold together until eating.
- Brush the tops with butter when they come out! This will help make your monkey bread nice and shiny while adding some moisture the top of each monkey bread.
Flavoring Your Monkey Bread
I used BANANA PUDDING in this recipe because I thought monkey bread and bananas just go hand in hand! 😉
I also have been into an instant pudding kick lately. I always stock up on a few boxes when I am in the food store. They make such a quick dessert and lead to so many possibilities!
You’ve got to check out these pudding desserts too!
Vanilla Pudding Puppy Chow Recipe (without peanut butter)
The BEST Mocha Vanilla Pudding Cookies (no chilling).
So when I began testing this monkey bread recipe out, I wondered how I could incorporate bananas into my monkey bread. I thought about using real bananas cut up or mashed up but that would prevent the dough from sticking together so banana pudding seemed like the best option.
Adding banana pudding makes the money bread SUPER moist with just enough banana flavoring.
You could really use ANY flavor pudding in this! I just think the banana goes so well but vanilla would be awesome too!
Try adding some banana slices to the top of your monkey breads to show your guests that they have bananas in them. (or at least are banana flavored!)
What would REALLY take these over the top would be to flambé the bananas in some RUM then pour the bananas over top…just sayin’…;)
Pin the photo below to save this recipe for later!
Here are some other party desserts you may also like:
Salted Dark Chocolate Snack Bark
Mini Raspberry Cheesecake Bites With Cookie Crust
Blueberry Cheese Crescent Dough Rounds
EASY Monkey Bread Muffins with Banana Pudding
Individual Banana Pudding Monkey Bread
Ingredients
- 2 10.2 oz. Can Biscuit Dough (10 biscuits)
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Tsp. Cinnamon
- 1/2 Cup Instant Banana Pudding
- 8 Tbsp. Melted Butter (unsalted)
- 1/4 Tsp. Salt (*If using unsalted butter)
Muffin Tin
Instructions
- Cut individual biscuits into at least 9 bite sized pieces.
- Mix cinnamon, sugar, pudding and salt in a bowl.
- Coat mini biscuit pieces in butter then into the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Add all 9 pieces to a lined muffin tin and press down firmly.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Let rest for 5-10 minutes before serving. Serve warm.
- Optional** Brush the tops of your banana breads with remaining butter and place banana slices on top before serving!
Recipe Notes
- These can be frozen in the muffin liners and baked at another time.
- Bake 75% and finish off the baking before serving to make sure your breads are nice and warm!
- The muffin liners help to keep the bread together so make sure you use them!
These EASY Monkey Bread Muffins with Banana Pudding are perfectly sized for individual fingers and only require 5 ingredients!
Love the idea of individual monkey breads. The flavors of banana, cinnamon and sugar are perfect. So easy to make! Great recipe.
Thanks Michelle! 🙂
Oh my goodness, these look AMAZING! and EASY!! and just look at those perfectly browned gooey banana slices… nice job! Going to have to try this for sure! 😉
Thanks Catherine!! 🙂
I love these Cuties and definitely love the idea of individualized. The germs part in the post grossed me out. 😂
Thank you! Lol, sorry! It’s what we all are thinking but don’t want to say!