Cranberry Orange Glazed Recipe for Monkey Bread

Make breakfast special this holiday season with Cranberry Orange Glazed Recipe for Monkey Bread.

Our delicious Recipe for Monkey Bread with Cranberries and an luscious Orange Glazed is the perfect holiday breakfast that the whole family will love! Thank you to #RhodesBread for the opportunity to develop this recipe using Rhodes Dinner Rolls. #FrozenDough #DinnerRolls #ad

I adore monkey bread – what’s not to love about the caramelized goodness?  This holiday season, I’m serving this festive Cranberry Orange Glazed Monkey Bread.  My family doesn’t care for them, but adding chopped walnuts or pecans to this would add a yummy crunch.  And of course, sprinkling the whole thing with powdered sugar reminds me of snow, so it’s just perfect for the holidays.  Olivia helped me to make this and said, “Mumma, let’s pretend we’re on a cooking show, and explain what we’re doing.”  I love her enthusiasm for my nontraditional job.  I love developing recipes, and she loves eating them!

What is Monkey Bread?

Monkey bread is starts with small balls of yeast dough and making a sweet sauce using sugar and lemon juice or vanilla extract. The most common version is made with just brown sugar and cinnamon, but I like dressing it up a little more for the holidays.  There are hundreds of thousands of variations on monkey bread, including savory versions.

How Long Does it Take to Make Monkey Bread?

Our recipe is semi-homemade, so you don’t have to spend tons of time working on making a dough.  All you need to get started with a basic recipe for monkey bread are Frozen Rhodes Dinner Rolls.  Once you have it all assembled, it bakes for 35-40 minutes.

So as we worked on this together, Olivia narrated.  She sampled the brown sugar cinnamon mixture, she squeezed the oranges, and even used the micro-plain to zest the oranges.  She’s such a good helper!

Shopping List:

• Rhodes White Yeast Dinner Rolls
• Brown Sugar
• Ground Cinnamon
• Butter
• Cranberry Jelly
• Orange

Items You May Also Need:

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• Cutting Board and Knife
• Mixing Bowl
• Microplane
• Bundt Pan
• Serving Platter

For a list of some of my favorite items to use when cooking, please visit my Kitchen Resource page. 

Cranberry Orange Glazed Recipe for Monkey Bread

This semi-homemade recipe for monkey bread is perfect for the holidays! With all the baking, wrapping gifts, writing cards and the rest, who has time to make a scratch-dough?  Plus, it’s so simple, the kids can get in the kitchen and give you a hand with it!

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5 from 1 vote

Cranberry Orange Glazed Monkey Bread

Sweet and tangy cranberry and orange flavors make this monkey bread recipe extra special!

Course Breakfast, holiday

Ingredients

• 24 Rhodes White Yeast Dinner Rolls
• 1 cup Brown Sugar, plus 1/4 cup
• 2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter melted
• 1/3 cup cranberry jelly, plus 2 tablespoons
• 1 orange zested and juiced

Instructions

• Place the rolls on a parchment-lined baking sheet to thaw – about 1 hour.
• Preheat the oven to 350-degrees F. Spray or grease a bundt pan, taking care to get into all the grooves.
• Cut thawed rolls in half and stretch them out into a small circle. Place a 1/2 teaspoon in the center of the dough, then pinch the edges together to make a little pouch.
• Dip each roll piece into butter and roll in the sugar. Place in the bundt pan.
• Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double in size.
• Remove wrap and bake at 350 degrees F 35-40 minutes. Cool 1 minute and invert onto serving platter.
• In a small mixing bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup brown sugar, the juice and zest from the orange, and 2 tablespoons of cranberry jelly.
• Pour over the hot monkey bread. Let cool 5 minutes before cutting. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Notes

Add 1 cup chopped pecans, walnuts or almonds for a delicious crunch!

VARIATIONS:

• For Thanksgiving, I add 1 pear or apple, peeled and chopped small in between the dough balls.
• Double the cranberry flavor by adding 1 cup whole cranberries.  Taste the cranberries - you may want to add just a touch more sugar because cranberries can be tart.
• Give this recipe a tweak by adding more warm spices for a gingerbread flavor.  Add 1 teaspoon ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves and then add 1 tablespoon of molasses to the brown sugar and cranberry jelly mixture.

DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?

If you try this recipe, I would love to see it and share it! Tag me on IG @jugglingactmama, using the hashtag #jugglingactmama

Doesn’t it just  look amazing? 

The yummy caramel-like sauce created by the cranberry jelly, butter and sugar is just incredible… honestly, words don’t do it justice!

Recipe Variations:

• For Thanksgiving, I add 1 pear or apple, peeled and chopped small in between the dough balls.
• Double the cranberry flavor by adding 1 cup whole cranberries.  Taste the cranberries – you may want to add just a touch more sugar because cranberries can be tart.
• Give this recipe a tweak by adding more warm spices for a gingerbread flavor.  Add 1 teaspoon ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves and then add 1 tablespoon of molasses to the brown sugar and cranberry jelly mixture.

Check out Another Recipe for Monkey Bread:

From left to right:

• Cheddar Bacon Monkey Bread
• Cranberry Orange Glazed Monkey Bread

Try one of these other recipes from some of my favorite blogs…

• Honey Cinnamon Monkey Bread – The Gold Lining Girl – Reminiscent of Greek honey balls but far more simple!
• Apple Pie Money Bread Recipe – The Pinning Mama – All the amazing flavors of apple pie but without all the work!
• Double Chocolate Monkey Bread – The Recipe Rebel – Hello, Chocolate! Need a say more??