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If there’s one thing December needs, it’s this Snowflake Pull-Apart Monkey Bread.
Okay, and maybe some real snow too, but since I can’t control the weather, I’m making snowflakes!
It’s weird, by this time of year we always have snow on the ground, and not just a thin layer, but lots of it. I can’t remember a year when we haven’t had piles of snow all over the place by now, so the fact that we have so little snow is weird…and kind of sad. Snow in December is my absolute favorite. Snow in March…April…May? No thanks, but snow in December, yes please. Obviously, there’s not much I can do about the lack of white stuff here in the west, but what I can do…is make deliciously gooey and sweet monkey bread that looks like a giant snowflake. Yup, that I can do.
For real though, how cute is this snowflake monkey bread? I’ve seen these snowflake breads all over my Pinterest page for years now and always thought they were the cutest. It wasn’t until this year that I had the idea to recreate my mom’s butterscotch monkey bread recipe into this festive snowflake. But I’m so glad the idea came to mind, because not only is this bread cute, it’s also incredibly delicious.
Warm, doughy, gooey, extra sweet, and loaded with cinnamon and butterscotch. It’s basically the ultimate Christmas morning breakfast.
Couldn’t love it more.
Now, I know what you guys are thinking, this looks so hard to make. Trust me though, this is not hard to make. I know it looks fancy, but in all honesty, it’s kind of easier than making monkey bread. I mean, it’s not as easy as my mom’s monkey bread, because her recipe doesn’t use homemade dough, or homemade butterscotch sauce and filling, but the process of actually making the snowflake is pretty easy…and fun!
And once you finish? You’ll feel a little proud that you created such a pretty looking bread…
Or at least I did anyway. Hey, I am not a professional pastry baker. I can bake, but making things look extra pretty? Not necessarily my thing.
Point is, even if you think you can’t make this, you can!
I tried to snap a bunch of photos of the twisting process so that you can use those as a guide when making your own bread. I am such a visual person, so at least for me, photos always help.
It’s really just a matter of layering the dough and then twisting. Pretty simple. And even if your snowflake doesn’t end up looking very “snowflake…ish”, don’t worry. All that matters is how the bread tastes, and it’s going to taste great in whatever shape or form.
Think of this snowflake monkey bread like your favorite gooey sticky bun, but instead of in bun form, they’re in cute, pull-apart snowflake form.
If like me you plan to make this for Christmas morning, you can form the snowflake on Christmas Eve, pop it in the fridge and let it sit overnight. In the morning, remove the snowflake from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature while the oven preheats, then just bake and eat!
Since I wanted my bread to be extra, extra gooey, like my mom’s monkey bread that we traditionally eat on Christmas morning, I ended up making an extra butterscotch sauce to lightly drizzle over the snowflake. In full disclosure, the butterscotch sauce is totally not needed. The bread is sweet enough on its own, but it’s the holiday’s and let’s be real, while the bread is good enough on its own, it’s better with that additional butterscotch sauce.
And a dusting of confectioners sugar…you know, for the snow effect.
Obviously.
Snowflake Pull-Apart Monkey Bread
Servings: 10 servings
Calories Per Serving: 740 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
Dough
- 1 cup warm whole milk
- 1 packet instant dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted
- 3 1/2-4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 egg beaten, for brushing before baking
Filling
- 6 tablespoons butter, very warm, but not melted
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
Butterscotch Sauce
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons whiskey
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- 1. To make the dough. Combine the milk, yeast, honey, 2 eggs, butter, 3 1/2 cups flour, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix on medium speed until the dough comes together and pulls away from the side of the bowl. The dough should be sticky, but if it seems too sticky, add the remaining 1/2 cup flour.2. Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Kneed into a smooth ball. Grease a large bowl and add the dough to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit 45 minutes-1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.3. Meanwhile, make the filling. Mix the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon to a bowl.4. Lightly dust a surface with flour. Once the dough has doubled in size, punch the dough down and roll into a ball. Cut the dough evenly into 4 pieces and roll each piece out into a 10 inch circle. Place 1 circle on a parchment lined baking sheet with sides. Spread 1/3 of the filling over the dough, leaving a 1/2 inch border around the edge. Place another piece of dough on top and spread with 1/3 of the filling. Add the 3rd layer of dough and spread with the remaining filling. Finish with the 4th dough round.5. Place a 2 inch wide drink glass in the center of the dough and use as a guide when cutting the strips. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into 4 triangles, then cut each triangle in half creating 8 triangles. Now cut each triangle in half again to make a total of 16 triangles (see photos above for a guide). 6. Remove the drink glass. Lift the edges of 2 wedges that are next to each other and twist them away from each other twice. Pinch the ends to seal (see photos above for guide). Repeat with the remaining pairs of wedges. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 45 minutes, or let rise overnight in the fridge. 7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and position a rack in the center. Brush the snowflake with the beaten egg. Bake for 15 minutes, remove from the oven and carefully spoon any sauce that has leaked out of bread back over the bread. Return to the oven and bake another 15 minutes or until golden brown. 8. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine the butter, brown sugar, and heavy cream. Bring to a boil and boil 3-4 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the whiskey and vanilla.8. Drizzle the snowflake with butterscotch sauce and dust lightly with confectioners sugar. Eat warm. Enjoy!
The best piece…the one with with extra butterscotch sauce…because it’s Christmas!
PS. have you guys entered my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer giveaway over on Instagram yet?
This recipe looks amazing and beautiful! I made it today and will bake for Christmas tomorrow. Thank you for the pictures- totally helped!
Merry Christmas!?
I hope this turned out amazing for you, Bridget! Thank you!
I don’t get this part
2 eggs, beaten
4 tablespoons butter, melted
3 1/2-4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water or milk
So is that 3 eggs in total ?
The 3rd egg is used for the wash, see step 7.
You need 2 eggs for the dough. the additional egg that gets beaten with the water is for brushing the bread before baking. Please let me know if you have other questions. Hope you love this recipe! Thanks! 🙂
Hello, I am making this tonight and letting it rise in the fridge. Do I need to pull it out and let it sit on the counter before putting in the oven or can I put in the oven right away? Thanks so much!
Good Morning,
I love the snowflake bread, I have made the raspberry one it turned out great. But I wanted to give this one a try also. I want to freeze it and give a a gift, Do I need to change the recipe at all to freeze the bread?
HI! No need to change the recipe to freeze and gift, should work out great! Please let me know if you have other questions. Hope you love this recipe! Happy Holiday’s ? 🙂
Hi Tieghan,
If I wanted to cheat and use a store bought pre-made dough (ie. Pillsbury) which kind would you suggest, this seems to be a bread type dough?
I would use their french bread dough I think. Please let me know if you have other questions. Hope you love this recipe! Happy Holiday’s ? 🙂
Thank you for the pictures of the “pinching” process. I just made King Arthur Flour’s Savory Star Bread with a pesto filling and I had trouble with that pinching process. It looks okay and I’m sure it will taste delicious. But now I have a better visual in mind for my next one which WILL be this sweet snowflake pull-apart. My husband loves butterscotch and I’ll make sure he gets that piece with the extra butterscotch sauce…after all it is Christmas..
I hope you love this recipes Carmen! Let me know how it turns out for you! Merry Christmas!
This is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen!! Totally gonna make this for my family this Christmas. Can’t wait!! Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you! I hope this turns out amazing for you! Thanks!
Hello,
If I don’t have any liquor for the butterscotch sauce, but still want to make it, could i just use vanilla or leave it out altogether?
HI! You can just omit it. Not a huge deal. Please let me know if you have other questions. Hope you love this recipe! Happy Holiday’s ? 🙂
WAAY too much filling! I’m going to cut the filling recipe in half next time.
For now, I have a delicious mess.
Hi Bob! Sorry about that. I hope this still turns out great for you and even better next time! Thanks!
Just made it and it’s amazing! All other variations called for ingredients I don’t normally have in my pantry like potato flour and dry milk powder. This recipe is delicious and much more convenient. Only question I have is how did your filling not goop all over the place when twisting. Yours looked much more dry. I also had way more filling then needed. No need for the topping. So good though, not complaining. 🙂
HI! My guess is that my kitchen is colder than yours. Once I mix my filling, the butter starts to set up, which makes it easier to spread and less goopy. Please let me know if you have other questions. So happy you love this recipe! Happy Holiday’s ? 🙂
We just made this and it was a huge success! Normally when I bake in the kitchen it’s a DISASTER involving fire alarms, burnt crusts, and a terrified barking dog…I’m not so good with the oven. But with this I just followed the instructions, refrigerated overnight and baked for breakfast and it tastes and looks amazing! I would say the butterscotch sauce is NOT optional, though. We added extra whiskey and didn’t look back. ☺️ Also enjoyed mimosas for breakfast (we used the bottle as an impromptu rolling pin) so we’re on a welcomed sugar rush right now!
I am really glad this recipe did not involve any fire alarms or burnt crusts haha! Also, really glad you enjoyed this and enjoyed making it, sounds like such a fun morning! Thank you Rebekah!
So pretty, I love that you made this as monkey bread!
Thank you Laura!
Wow. I’d think you’d have, at the very least, given credit to King Arthur Flour. Just because you change the name of a recipe and pour butterscotch sauce over it doesn’t make it original.
Hey Karen, I don’t even know what King Arthur Flour recipe you are referring too, I have never scene it. If you google snowflake bread many, many, MANY variations will come up. If I had adapted it from someone, I would have stated that information. As I mentioned within the post, this is my moms monkey bread recipe, but in a different form. If you don’t like what you see here, please feel free to just kindly click away. Negativity is not welcome. Thank you and Happy Holiday’s to you and your family.
I can imagine this will go down a treat around the lunch table on Christmas!
Yes! Thank you!
Hey Tieghan,
I absolutely love this snowflake cinnamon roll bread! I’ve also seen a bunch of breads like this on Pinterest and have been wanting to finally bake one. I like how easy your dough seems to work with and think this would be perfect for Christmas breakfast! Maybe with some whip cream and pure maple syrup? ?
I’m sorry you aren’t getting blankets of snow. The weather does seem to be changing and is a bit off. Hopefully it will snow over the next few weeks! Maybe you can make some smores and have a nice night outside. Also, have you heard about the geminid meteor shower this week? I recommend seeing them this year!
I hope you’re staying warm and I’m looking forward to more holiday baking. 🙂
Hi Kristin! I am so so glad you like this! And no I have not heard about that, but I totally want to check it out! Thanks for letting me know! I hope you are staying warm as well!