This is the easiest cinnamon roll monkey bread recipe ever. Kids love getting in on the fun of wrapping brown sugar-coated dough pieces around the delightful pockets of sweet cream cheese! Make it with refrigerated cinnamon rolls and get plucking!
Monkey bread is a fun pull-apart style breakfast treat, named after the fact that everyone picks at it, just like monkeys would pick at their food. This recipe has all the flavors of my favorite classic cinnamon rolls, which I love. I also have a this savory taco monkey bread recipe if you’re looking for a dinnertime version!
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This wonderfully simple recipe for cream cheese-filled cinnamon roll monkey bread is yet another variation of one of my family’s favorite breakfast treats (next to my praline monkey bread, which you should also try). This monkey bread is a fun-to-eat breakfast cake made from canned cinnamon rolls stuffed with pockets of cream cheese. Everything gets baked in a bundt pan for a gorgeous shape that’s easy to pull apart with your fingers, monkey-style!
Reasons To Love This Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread
- Gooey cinnamon roll flavors. This cinnamon roll-inspired monkey bread is an easy recipe filled with pockets of savory cream cheese, wrapped in buttery dough coated with finger-licking brown sugar glaze. The whole thing gets drizzled with sweet vanilla icing at the end. It’s a WOW from me!!
- Kid-friendly. Monkey bread is one of those treats that looks impressive at the table while being SO easy to make, and we make it often in our house. Plus, young kids love to help when wrapping and rolling the dough around the cream cheese cubes.
- Simple ingredients. You need only 4 of them! I make this cinnamon and cream cheese monkey bread with canned refrigerated cinnamon rolls, which cuts down significantly on the ingredients list and prep time.
What is Monkey Bread?
Commonly made in a bundt pan, traditional Monkey Bread is made from sweet, sugar-coated balls of dough baked together into cake form. The idea is to pull apart the sticky-sweet bread pieces in a way that’s similar to how monkeys pull apart their food, giving this fun sharing recipe its name!
Monkey bread is a little different from my cinnamon roll pull-apart bread, which is essentially mini cinnamon rolls baked together in a loaf pan instead of a bundt pan.
Recipe Ingredients
Thanks to the use of pre-made, canned cinnamon rolls, this recipe is insanely simple in terms of the other ingredients. Including the rolls, the list is only 4 items long! I’ve included some quick notes here. Scroll down to the recipe card after the post for the printable ingredients list and complete recipe details.
- Cinnamon Roll Dough – You’ll need about 3 cans of refrigerated cinnamon rolls (8 rolls each). I use Pillsbury Grands (like I used to make the viral TikTok cinnamon rolls). However, if you can’t get your hands on ready-made dough, feel free to use your favorite homemade recipe!
- Butter – Salted or unsalted butter both work here.
- Cream Cheese – Make sure it’s cold from the fridge, since you’ll cut into cubes.
- Brown Sugar – This can be light or dark brown sugar, whichever you have on hand.
How to Make Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread
To make the perfect monkey bread, I use a bundt pan lightly coated in cooking spray. Other pans will also work, but the bundt shape is especially great for bread that pulls apart! While your oven is preheating, follow the steps below. You’ll find the printable instructions in the recipe card further on.
- Assemble the monkey bread. Place one square of cream cheese in the center of a flattened cinnamon roll, then fold the dough around the cheese. Give it a pinch to seal the dough closed! Place the first dough ball into a lightly greased bundt pan and repeat with the remaining cinnamon rolls.
- Add the brown sugar sauce. Melt the butter and brown sugar together in the microwave, give it a good stir and pour the mixture over top of the cinnamon rolls.
- Bake. Bake the monkey bread in a preheated oven until the top of the cake is a nice golden brown, about 40 minutes.
- Flip, frost, and serve. Give the monkey bread 5 minutes to cool before turning the bundt pan over onto a plate. Once free from the pan, you can drizzle the monkey bread with the icing that comes with the cinnamon roll tubes. Have your fingers at the ready, and let the monkey business begin!
Recipe Tips
- Make it ahead of time. This recipe is easy to make ahead of time! You can follow the recipe right up until baking, and store the bundt pan covered in the fridge until you’re ready to bake it. Just remember to adjust the cooking time accordingly or allow the monkey bread to reach room temperature again prior to putting it in the oven.
- How to tell when monkey bread is cooked: Due to the nature of this pull-apart bread, the best way to check if it’s finished baking is to use a thermometer inserted into the cake. The internal temperature should be about 190°F.
- Skip the cream cheese filling. If you’d prefer to make this monkey bread without the pockets of cream cheese, simply roll the cinnamon rolls into ball and assemble them in the bundt pan. Pour over the brown sugar mixture and bake afterward as written.
How to Store Homemade Monkey Bread
- At room temperature. Store monkey bread sealed in a ziplock bag and out of direct sunlight for up to 2 days, or airtight in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- Freeze. If you’d like to store monkey bread for longer than a week, freezing is the best way to ensure freshness (and to avoid the bread going stale)! You can freeze baked monkey bread tightly wrapped in plastic wrap or sealed in an airtight freezer bag for up to 3 months. Leave it in the fridge overnight to thaw.
More Sweet Breakfast Recipes
Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This is the easiest cinnamon roll monkey bread recipe ever! Every soft, sugar-coated pull-apart bread piece has a gooey pocket of sweet cream cheese inside. Make it with refrigerated cinnamon rolls!
Ingredients
- 3 cans Cinnamon Rolls (12.4 oz, containing 8 rolls in each)
- 1, 8 oz block cold cream cheese, cut into cubes
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Spray a bundt or tube pan lightly with cooking spray.
- Cut your block of cream cheese into 24 small squares.
- Flatten each cinnamon roll with your fingers and place one square of cream cheese in the center of the flattened roll. Fold the roll around the cream cheese and pinch to seal. Place in prepared pan. Repeat with remaining rolls and cream cheese.
- In microwave safe bowl combine butter and brown sugar. Heat for approximately 1 minute until butter is melted. Stir together and pour over the cinnamon rolls.
- Bake 35-40 minutes until top is golden brown.
- Let cool in pan for 5 minutes and then flip pan onto a cake plate or platter.
- Drizzle with the frosting that came in the cinnamon roll cans, if desired.
- Serve warm.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 488
- Sugar: 35.7 g
- Sodium: 751.6 mg
- Fat: 24.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 64.4 g
- Protein: 5.1 g
- Cholesterol: 39.5 mg
one more ? – I have 4 cans of cinnamon rolls as I was planning on making breakfast for about 30 people. Could I use all 4 cans or would it work better to make 2 cans in one pan and 2 another – or perhaps cooking all 4 in a 9×13 pan?
depends on the size of the cinnamon rolls, but I would do them in 2 pans 🙂
how many would this serve/
This will serve 8-ish people 🙂
I’ve cooked this a few times bc it’s amazing! But every time I cook it the rolls that are touching each other still seem doughie when we eat it. I don’t want to cook it longer bc I’m worried it will be dried out or will burn. Any advice?
I would give it a few more minutes in the oven 🙂
i use the biscuits and put cream cheese cube inside. I also put chopped pecans in mine too. I call it Gorilla Bread.