vegan, gluten-free, cakes & breads, fruit-sweetened, oil-free, sweet · November 27, 2017

Vegan Monkey Bread

Cinnamon-spiced and sticky-sweet, this gluten-free vegan monkey bread is the ultimate pull-apart treat made with medjool dates, oats, and chia seeds!

THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY NATURAL DELIGHTS.

Monkey bread. Not ginger-spice candy cane cranberry swirl bread with a snowflake streusel. I thought we could all use a minute to adjust to the fact that thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is next on the reasons-to-bake calendar. Crazy, right?

But monkey bread – is it Christmasy? Is it not? See, no one really knows.

And that is the beauty of it. Well that and the fact that it is literally A PAN OF STICKY CINNAMON DOUGH BALLS. We cannot overlook that small detail either.

Reasons monkey bread is holiday apropos:

Exceptionally bake and bring-able. So if you are tasked with supplying the dessert, a couple of loaves of this sweet stuff and everyone will love you forever.
Low-key granny vibe. Anything grandma makes = holiday-y. Exhibit A: cookies.
Cinnamon. Lots of cinnamon.
Also known as pull-apart bread, so unrivaled on share-ability.
Literally glistening with joy (sugar). But unrefined fruity sugar because Natural Delights takes our holiday wishes very seriously.

Reasons monkey bread is not holiday apropos:

It tastes so so good in July too.
That is all.

So while the holiday-ness of monkey bread remains forever unclear and we eat it whenever we damn well please, I’m going to fill you in on all the details of THIS loaf.

True story: I was kinda (deeply) intimidated by the goals I set for this recipe:

Made with oat flour.
No starches (tapioca/arrowroot/cornstarch).
Still soft. Still moist. Still scrumptious. Still obsess-about-able.

Sometimes you just gotta set the loaf-made-of-balls baking bar high for yourself, ya know?

See here’s the thing. Oats are quite absorptive. Which is great if you are making oatmeal, essential even. But it’s not as great if you are making an oil-free batter for bread that has to be thick enough to easily roll into balls but not so thick that it is TOO dry after baking. A pour-able oat flour batter is easy. A roll-able oat flour dough is much trickier.

And that is why full-fat coconut milk is the one and only liquid ingredient in this recipe. It is the key to striking the rich but roll-able balance. So don’t skip it or sub any kind of low-fat carton nonsense. The textural fate of the entire pan of gooey monkey magic is on the line.

Btw. I wanted this recipe to be made with oat flour because many of you asked for an oat option after the last (chocolate) monkey bread I posted. But if you love baking with almond flour (hello wise and dear friend!) then swap the cacao powder in that recipe for 1/2 cup more almond flour and simply skip the cacao in the coating. Wham bam grain-free monkey bread if that’s your jam.

Goal number 1 – check.

Goal number 2. As much as I am tapioca starch’s biggest fan, I get it. You don’t want your entire pantry to be crammed with bags and boxes of a zillion different floury things. So instead of a starch to bind the ballz – chia seeds! Sticky, bind-y, and ground to seedy chia specks.

I was worried they may not have what it takes (overly crumbly texture). Or they may have too much of what it takes (funky gummy texture). But rest assured, they nailed it and neither happened. Sweet little spheres that hold together with a fluffy defined crumb inside. Tapioca who? (Jk, tapioca starch I still love you!)

You may be thinking: Why isn’t date-sweetened on the list of goals? Because monkey bread + medjool dates is a match meant to be. It’s not hard. It’s not a challenge. It’s just the world as it should be operating in monkey-medjool harmony.

There is no lady-like way to say it: this recipe uses a ~~hugeass~~ NOT small quantity of dates. But stick with me, because you deserve the medjool-iest of monkey breads.

The dough itself is completely sweetened with my favorite medjool dates from Natural Delights. Why are they my favorite? Only because they are always super fresh and sweet, easy to find, and even come already pitted in case you like saving time. Do your monkey self a favor -> best medjool dates.

And then there’s the coating, a.k.a. what makes monkey bread the best thing to ever happen in a loaf pan. Date paste smothered on the outside of every doughy ball so once they are all piled in a pan delicious gobs of gooeyness form in between – it’s nothing short of magnificent. And hey, normally that would be gobs of butter and brown sugar, so dates + water is looking pretty good now, huh?

You and me and this lumpy loaf – easing into the Christmas season sticky finger-licking style!