Monkey breading around

I have a wonderful staff of ladies (and one gentleman!) who fold and label our little church's monthly newsletter. I usually bake a breakfast bread or other sweet treat for them, but  because of the holiday crunch I was at the office very late on our last folding date. Hmm. What could I make them that wouldn't take too much time?

I poked around the Interspace cookbook for a while, and found a monkey bread recipe from Pillsbury, using two cans of their Grands biscuits. Gee, it was meant to be...I actually had two cans in my icebox! Unfortunately, I was out of raisins, so I substituted a down home Cape Cod favorite, our very own Ocean Spray's sweetened dried cranberries.  I was also loathe to open a new bag of walnuts since I had several open bags of almonds on hand. In short, I improvised, and made -- ta dah! -- my variation of monkey bread:  I'm calling it Cape Cod Chimp Cake.

If you'd like the original recipe from Pillsbury, it's fast and easy. If you'd like to help the cranberry bog farmers here on Cape Cod,  with my even better and  delightfully cran-delicious variation, try my  recipe:

Cape Cod Chimp Cake

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
2 cans Pillsbury Grands refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
2/3 cups orange flavor Craisons
1/2 cup sliced almonds

1 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup melted butter


Grease bundt pan with cooking spray.


Mix cinnnamon and sugar in a large zip-lock bag, and mix.


Separate biscuits, and cut each one into fourths. Roll lightly into ball and shake in bag of sugar.


Arrange biscuits in bundt pan, adding almonds and Craisons in the nooks and crannies.


Microwave butter until well melted, and mix with  brown sugar. Pour over rolls - get it down in the lower levels, because any mixture that stays on top will over brown.


Bake 25-30 minutes. Cool 15 minutes. turn upside down on serving dish.

Guess they liked it. Here's what I found at the end of the day.

Does Wilton's wonderful cake taker work for monkey bread, too? Funny you should ask (especially since that's the cake taker you see in the background above). Yes, yes, it does!

This posting is linked to Show off your stuff party # 27 at Fireflies and Jellybeans. Welcome visitors- hope you stay and poke around Olde Cape Cod!