Gayle King’s “Favorite” Pillsbury Biscuit Hack Is So Delicious, I’m Making It Every Weekend

If you’ve never experienced the joy of eating monkey bread, let this be your sign to try it. The sweet versions are made up of doughy, pull-apart balls of fresh, sweet bread layered with a gooey, cinnamon scented, caramel-like sauce. The savory versions have the same soft, pillowy structure, but are often flavored with cheese, garlic, and herbs (like a leveled-up garlic bread). In other words, you can’t go wrong!

When I learned that Oprah Winfrey’s best friend, Gayle King, had a recipe for this cinnamon-sugar treat, I knew I had to try it.  After all, anyone who’s best friends with Oprah must know a thing or two about good food, right? What drew me to this recipe was its simplicity. While traditional monkey bread traces its roots back to Hungarian Jewish immigrants who brought what was called “aranygaluska,” or “golden dumplings” to America, this version takes a shortcut with store-bought buttermilk biscuit dough that makes it accessible to even the most novice baker. And with no need to proof and shape the dough, this might be the easiest breakfast or teatime treat I’ve ever made. It’s a gloriously sticky, perfectly sweet creation that had my family fighting over the last pieces.

Get the recipe: Gayle King’s Favorite Monkey Bread

This recipe feels more like playing with food than baking, making its playful name feel entirely more fitting. You start by cutting prepared buttermilk biscuit dough, like Pilsbury, into quarters. I found this oddly therapeutic, like playdough for grown-ups, but opted to keep mine in smaller (two-biscuit-size) pieces. Then you coat each piece in a dusting of cinnamon-sugar, creating little pillows of sweetness that you arrange in a Bundt pan like edible building blocks.

The best part is pouring over the butter-sugar mixture. It’s a simple combination of melted butter, brown sugar, and the leftover cinnamon-sugar coating that you quickly bring to a boil on the stove. It transforms in the oven into a caramel-like sauce that cascades down the sides when you flip the bread onto a plate. The whole process takes about 45 minutes from start to finish, with most of that time being hands-off baking.

The biscuits puff up beautifully in the oven, creating distinct layers that pull apart with just the right amount of resistance. I made a few tweaks to the recipe (see my tips below), and it definitely improved the dessert. I added an extra step of first coating the dough in butter, which allows the cinnamon sugar to adhere to the dough better and the caramel sauce to seep into most nooks and crannies.

What I loved most was the texture — crispy cinnamon sugar edges developed on the parts that rose above the pan, while the remaining inside pieces were soft, tender, and generously coated in that sweet sauce. It’s definitely sweet, but not cloyingly so, with the cinnamon providing a warm background note that balances it out. 

• Double coat. The recipe calls for coating the biscuits directly in the cinnamon sugar, but I found that it didn’t stick as well to the dough. So I lightly coated each piece in melted butter first, then tossed them in the bowl of cinnamon sugar. This left me with about ⅓ cup of butter. To simplify things, I added this to the pot with half that amount of sugar and half brown sugar, and ¼ to ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, then proceeded with the recipe as directed. You could try measuring out the remaining cinnamon sugar, but after first coating the dough in butter, there wasn’t a lot left of mine. So I opted to do it this way instead.
• Hold back a little. When pouring the sauce over the dough balls, don’t let it go past two-thirds of the way up the pan. Otherwise, the sauce will boil over and cause a massive disaster in your oven. (I learned this the hard way.) I ended up with extra sauce doing it this way. So when the bread was ready, I warmed it up and drizzled it over any parts that looked like they needed a bit more.
• Size matters. Use a standard 10-inch Bundt pan. I only had an 8-inch Bundt, which was too much dough for the pan. So, the first time I made it, it was towering over, and the dough didn’t cook through very well. The second time I made it, I used less dough (about 2½ tubes), which was perfect. If you also have a smaller Bundt pan, use slightly less dough.
• Butter well. Butter the Bundt pan generously to ensure your bread will release easily. You don’t want to lose any of that gooey bread to the pan!
• Rest. While it’s tempting to dig in immediately, let the bread cool for at least 30 minutes. This allows the sauce to set slightly, making it easier to flip it out and preventing the sauce from running everywhere.

Get the recipe: Gayle King’s Favorite Monkey Bread