I hate wasting scraps—so when Chefsteps suggested using dough scraps to make monkey bread, I fell in love with the idea. Doughnuts produce lots of scraps, and homemade doughnut holes are both hard to cook at home and turn stale quickly. The recipe can be made using the scraps from my doughnut recipe, or from a half batch of doughnut dough. Don’t worry about making the chunks even or pretty; they’ll get torn apart anyways.
Makes one loaf of monkey bread
Ingredients
Scraps from 1 recipe doughnuts, or ½ recipe doughnut dough
150g dark brown sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
100g chocolate chips
1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
If using doughnut dough but not making doughnuts, prepare the dough as specified using half of the ingredients and proof for one hour. Punch down the dough and dust the countertop with flour, but instead of rolling into a sheet, use your hands to roll the dough into a 1” diameter log. Use a bench scraper to cut the dough into 1” segments.
Generously grease a bundt pan with baking spray. Whisk together the brown sugar, melted butter, chocolate chips, and kosher salt in a large bowl. If using doughnut scraps, cut scraps into ¾”-1” chunks. Toss the dough pieces together with the brown sugar mixture by hand until the pieces are thoroughly coated. Place the dough pieces in the bundt pan, loosely cover with plastic wrap, and let proof at room temperature until puffed but not quite doubled in size, 45 minutes to an hour.
20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 350°F. Once the dough has fully proofed, place in the oven and bake until the top is golden brown and the internal temperature of the loaf registers 200-210°F, 25-35 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately invert the loaf onto a serving plate. Let cool for several minutes and eat while still warm.