Welcome to Cooking with Less Kilowatts! There is nothing better than sitting down in the evening to enjoy a delicious home-cooked meal. But did you know that changing what you do in the kitchen can make an impact on your monthly electricity bill? Each week, I will help you find ways to cook using less energy while still getting a satisfying, flavorful meal. Trust me – I won’t just tell you to do everything in the microwave. I’ll help you cut down on your energy consumption.
Spring Break is this month, so this week’s energy saving recipe is a perfect option to get the kids involved in the kitchen! These sweet and delicious mini monkey bread muffins are full of flavors from coconut, macadamia nuts, and pineapple, giving you the sensation of a spring break vacation to the Hawaiian Islands.
You can also save serious energy using a muffin pan instead of a large Bundt cake pan, as the cooking time is cut in half, and the low cooking temperature doesn’t put much strain on your oven.
Even better – you don’t need to make a dough from scratch and create a big mess. Go ahead and use store-bought canned buttermilk biscuits. With all the flavors in my award-worthy glaze, no one will notice the dough isn’t homemade!
I recommend using two muffin wrappers instead of one because the brown sugar/pineapple juice/butter sauce you spoon in before baking caramelizes as it bakes. The use of two wrappers makes it much easier to remove the monkey bread from the muffin pan. You could also use one reusable silicon wrapper to get extra green with your cooking.
The final part of this recipe is an amazing glaze that combines coconut milk and white chocolate. Add in a little almond milk, powdered sugar, and some more pineapple juice to ramp up this glaze’s flavor even more!
The optional cardamom spice pairs perfectly with macadamia nuts and brown sugar to really enhance the pineapple. While you can certainly skip cardamom in your recipe, I recommend trying it, as the slightly citrusy and herby flavor of this spice really adds a new level of flavor.
Hawaiian Glazed Mini Monkey Breads
Monkey Bread Ingredients:
- 3 Cans buttermilk biscuit dough (7.5 oz. size cans)
- ¼ c. Turbinado sugar
- ¼ c. Sweetened coconut, fancy shred
- ½ c. Sweet cream, salted butter
- 1/3 c. Light brown sugar
- 3 tbsp. Pineapple juice (from tidbits can)
- ¼ tsp. Ground cardamom (optional)
- ¼ c. Pineapple tidbits (from can)
- ¼ c. Macadamia nuts
- 3 tbsp. White chocolate chips
Glaze Ingredients:
- 1/3 c. Coconut milk
- 1/3 c. White chocolate chips
- ¼ c. Almond milk (sweetened, no flavoring)
- ¼ c. Powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp. Pineapple juice (from tidbits can)
Directions:
1) Heat oven to 350° F. Take a 12 slot muffin pan and line each spot with two muffin wrappers (double layer because they will become sticky after cooking).
2) In a small bowl, combine the Turbinado sugar and shredded coconut.
3) Open all 3 dough cans and cut the biscuit dough pieces into quarters.
4) Add the dough quarters into a gallon zip bag along with the sugar/coconut mixture and toss everything until evenly coated. Separate the dough chunks by hand if it sticks together and continue to coat.
4) In a medium sized microwave safe bowl, microwave the stick of butter for 1 minute. Remove bowl from the microwave and whisk in the brown sugar, pineapple juice, and optional ground cardamom until smooth.
5) Place a handful of macadamia nuts and 2 -3 pineapple tidbits on the bottom of each muffin wrapper. Alternate adding in pieces of the coated dough, a few white chocolate chips, and more macadamia nuts until each tin spot/wrapper is full. Do not overfill wrappers as the dough will puff up as it bakes. Place 1 pineapple tidbit on top of each spot.
6) Evenly spoon the sweet sauce over each muffin tin. Spoon small, equal amounts on each one and continue to make sure none have too much or too little sauce.
7) Top each muffin with an extra sprinkle of shredded coconut and bake the tins in the oven on the middle rack for 15 minutes.
8) While the monkey bread bakes, prepare the glaze by adding all glaze ingredients into a microwave safe bowl and microwaving them for 1 minute on high. Remove bowl from microwave and whisk everything together until smooth.
9) After 15 minutes in the oven, move the pan to the top rack and turn the broiler on low for 1 to 2 minutes to crisp up and brown the tops.
You can pull apart these little sweet Hawaiian mini monkey breads and eat them by hand, dip them in the delicious coconut milk glaze, or serve them my favorite way: covered in the coconut milk glaze and eaten with a fork! Just pour the glaze over each mini monkey bread and eat up!
Delivering a delicious sweet and creamy element to these monkey bread muffins, this delicious glaze is great with fried doughnuts, waffles, pancakes, fresh fruit, or even over lemon pound cake!Enjoy your Spring Break!
Check in next week for another Cooking with Less Kilowatts recipt to help you create delicious, homemade recipes while keeping energy use and effort to a minimum!
Recipe and Images by Stacie Morgan