Overnight Sweet Potato Pecan Monkey Bread

A colorful brunch bread using purple and orange sweet potatoes in an enriched dough. This bread is made in short sessions--make the dough and assemble the bread one day, bake when you're ready.

Apologies to Esther Dean** but, . . . na na na come on. Na nana nana come on, come on, come on

Cause I rarely bake, but I'm perfectly good at it

Yeast in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it

Baking stones make break, so Ode, but preferments excite me

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I'm much happier when my kitchen sessions happen in small chunks--make the pesto one day, freeze it, use it throughout the winter. Caramelize onions in the crock pot, use them in quick meals. Make pizza dough when I have time earlier in the week, enjoy a homemade pizza on Friday night. An entire book devoted to this method, Make Ahead Bread by Donna Currie, is a great idea. I've ordered my copy--to donate to my local library so more folks get to play than just me. You can see more info about the book via this Amazon affiliate link.

There is just something soul-warming about tearing off a hunk of sweet bread and stuffing it into your mouth. The way it seems to melt on your tongue as you begin to chew is so satisfying. I imagine all of the recipe testing involved in writing a book about bread would be an interesting mix of pleasure and chore, and kudos to Donna Currie for slogging through the chore aspect to create this achievement.

As we most often eat Multigrain Sourdough bread, I relegate the chore of preparing our standard loaf to my bread machine. I consider our daily bread to be more utilitarian in nature and don't really think about the craft of baking bread. When I heard about the movement to mark the first anniversary of Make Ahead Bread, (Amazon affiliate link) with a virtual book party, I knew I wanted in.

To drum up interest in a newly-released book, publishers will encourage bloggers to choose from a carefully-selected group of recipes for their posts. When I saw Donna's Sweet Potato Monkey Bread on the list I figured I'd use my purple farm share sweet potatoes in it. At the next Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share pick up I was describing my plans and Cara of fairly simple suggested making the monkey bread with a mixture of orange and purple sweet potatoes. Great idea!

Because I was making 2 doughs at the same time, I figured I'd use my mixer for one and the dough cycle of the bread machine for the other. Since the temperature of my kitchen ranges from really cold in the winter to really hot in the summer, using the bread machine year round provides a nice climate controlled environment each and every time. The dough in the machine rose twice as fast as the dough in my straight sided bucket.

[Note for new bread bakers--if you've got a straight sided bucket it makes the whole 'rise until double' thing easy to see. Simply dump in the dough, grab a ruler, and stick a piece of tape where 'double' should be. Then keep an eye on the dough until it hits the tape mark.]

This photo shows the Whole Wheat and Parmesan pizza crust as well as the monkey bread doughs.

For more recipes using sweet potatoes, please see my Sweet Potato Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This page is a resource for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share, the farmer's market, or garden abundance. Organizing by produce type appeals to my "I've got _______, what can I do with it?" mentality. I've got a board devoted to potatoes on Pinterest, and I'm sharing the latest from the kitchen and garden on my FB page. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.


Now for some notes. This recipe calls for roasted sweet potato--I tossed mine in the oven while roasting a pan of green beans followed by a pan of cubed white potatoes. I like to roast veggies when it's not stinkin' hot out. I usually roast sweet potatoes, wrapped in foil, in a 400 to 425 degree Fahrenheit oven until they 'give' when I squeeze them. That's between 30 to 50 minutes depending on the size of the potato.

Another Note: it was raining the first time I made these doughs, and I ended up adding 4 additional Tablespoons of bread flour to my dough. The second time I made these doughs it was sunny and dry and I still felt a bit more flour was needed to make the consistency I was comfortable with. I've included a range in the recipe below.

Yet Another Note: my version of Donna's recipe makes 2 pans of monkey bread, though of course you can toss the other half of the dough in the fridge and make the second pan a few days later. This would be fun for a large holiday brunch or baby shower. The colors would look terrific for Easter, and if you could come up with the right vegetal green color [matcha?]--even Mardi Gras. To make a single pan 8 inch round pan using a single color of sweet potato, please see Laura's Overnight Monkey Bread or Renee's Sweet Potato Monkey Bread.

Still Another Note, last one I promise:  Donna calls for hazelnut meal or almond meal in the coating. I had neither, so I had my kid chop up some pecans. I spent too many years working across the street from the White House of the Confederacy not to adore the combination of sweet potato + pecan.

Before going into the refrigerator, left, and after baking, right.

Overnight Sweet Potato Pecan Monkey Bread (closely adapted from Donna Currie's recipe in Make Ahead Bread) makes 2 9x9 pans

Ingredients for Orange Sweet Potato Dough

• ½ cup roasted orange sweet potato, cooled (see Note above)
• 1 large egg
• ½ cup granulated white sugar
• ½ cup lukewarm water
• 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (1 packet)
• 11+1/4 to 12+¼ ounces bread flour (by weight) or 2+½ to 2+¾ cups (by volume)
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Ingredients for Purple Sweet Potato Dough

• ½ cup roasted purple sweet potato, cooled (see Note above)
• 1 large egg
• ½ cup granulated white sugar
• ½ cup lukewarm water
• 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (1 packet)
• 11+¼ to 12+¼ ounces bread flour (by weight) or 2+½ to 2+¾ cups (by volume)
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Ingredients for Pecan Coating

• 6 Tablespoons finely chopped pecans
• 6 Tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 6 Tablespoons graham cracker crumbs
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions for Prep Day

1. I found it easiest to make one dough at a time and refrigerate the first one once doubled. 
2. Dump all the ingredients for a batch of dough into a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or a bread machine set to the dough cycle and jump back in at #6). If you're NOT using a bread machine, mix well with a spoon or paddle attachment. 
3. Stop to scrape down the sides (dough will be sticky). If mixing by hand, this is when you'd pour it out onto a floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. If using a mixer, this is when you switch to a dough hook and let it go until smooth and elastic.
4. With floured hands, transfer dough to an oiled bowl (straight sides are best to accurately measure doubled dough), cover with plastic or a tea towel, and let the dough rise until doubled.
5. Repeat #2-#4 with second batch of dough.
6. Mix pecan coating ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.
7. With floured hands, transfer dough to a cutting board or piece of parchment. Divide in half.
8. If baking a single pan of monkey bread, place the unused half of dough in a zip top bag and refrigerate for another day or freeze for later. If baking both pans, generously butter both 9 inch square baking pans or round baking pans.
9. Cut each dough portion into about 12 to 13 pieces using a floured knife. I wanted to alternate colors in my square pan, so I had 13 of one color and 12 of the other. I followed Donna's advice to keep the piece size random.
10. Roll each piece in the pecan coating before nestling it into the prepared pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. If you're making one pan, you'll have half the coating left over for your next pan--you can store that in a jar in the fridge as well.

Instructions on Baking Day (start at least 90 minutes before you want to serve)

1. Remove pan from refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Remove the plastic wrap. 
3. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Donna suggests an instant read thermometer reaches 190 degrees Fahrenheit, so that should probably go on my Christmas list.
4. Cool the bread in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes, then lift out (couple of pancake turners did the trick) and transfer directly to a rack to cool another 20 minutes before serving.
5. I have no idea how long this bread will keep. Before it was completely cool I'd sent most of it out of the house--to the neighbors on either side of us as well as along with my son to his ACT proctor since he was headed off to take the exam.

Want to see what the rest of the bakers have created for the Make Ahead Bread Virtual Book Party?
Check out all the delights:

• Blueberry & Cream Cheese Buns with Lemon Zest from Meghan of Clean Eats, Fast Feets
• Buttermilk Rolls from Renee of Magnolia Days 
• Cheese Ball Rolls from Sandra of Dear Lauren Love Mom 
• Pizza Bread from Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories 
• Pumpkin Yeast Bread from Faith of An Edible Mosaic 
• Sesame Seeded Semolina Bread from Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories 
• Sourdough English Muffins from Alisa of Go Dairy Free 
• Stuffing Bread with Dried Cranberries from Stacy of Food Lust People Love  
• Sweet Potato Monkey Bread from Renee of Magnolia Days 
• Sweet Potato Monkey Bread from Laura of Mother Would Know
• Whole Wheat Pita from Jenni of Pastry Chef Online 
• Whole Wheat and Parmesan Pizza Crust from Kirsten of Farm Fresh Feasts (that's me!)

Would you like to win your own autographed copy of Make Ahead Bread? Head on over to Party Central to enter!

**Esther Dean wrote the song S&M. Rhianna made it a hit. I first heard it when I watched Esther sing it in Pitch Perfect 1. The song appears about a minute into this video clip from Pitch Perfect. The tune is catchy, and when thinking about this post while walking the dogs "yeast in the air, I don't care, I like the smell of it" popped into my head. When I came up with 'preferments' I was tickled pink with how well the syllables and intention fit with my post.