Cooking with the kids (Monkey bread)

I like to tell my kiddos that they are monkeys. Some days this seems true with them running around and bouncing off furniture. So naturally when my sister shared the recipe for Monkey Bread with me, I had to make it with the kids. I changes it some from the first time I made it and I will include that here. Monkey Bread Time: LOL, you know where I stand with that and cooking with kids Ingredients: 1 Gallon size bag (food storage or ziploc will do) 1 (12 ounce) package of refrigerated biscuit dough I found a 16 ounce of Pillsbury home style biscuit dough in a can

1/3 cup white sugar ( I used the next size up 1/2 cup and left it out to add more later )

3/4 Teaspoon ground cinnamon ( I used 2 tsp and left it out to add some more later)

2 tbl. spoons and 2 tsp of margarine/butter

1/3 cup packed brown sugar ( I used 1/2 cup)

Something that is not in the original recipe that I used it vanilla extract. I use a generic store brand. I use this because the first time the outside of the dough tasted good but the inside was bland. I cut up the biscuits into fours and poked holes in them. The I let them sit in some vanilla extract. I did this first so there was enough time to soak.

Cooking:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9 or 10 inch tube pan. I used my bread loaf pan, never actually measured it and it turned out fine.

2. Mix white sugar and cinnamon in plastic bag. Take your quartered biscuit pieces now. Out 3-4 in at a time and shake them (kids loved this!) Arrange pieces at the bottom of your pan. The sugar and cinnamon coating started to get pretty weak towards the end so I added more in. Just eye ball it. You know what your family likes.

3.In a small sauce pan, melt the margarine with the brown sugar over medium heat. I can be impatient so I used high heat and stayed there to stir it. Boil for 1 minute (this is when I turned the heat down some). Pour over the biscuits.

4.Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a plate. I put the plate on top and flip it all together.

DO NOT CUT! Take all the fun out of it for your kids to pull it apart. This will stay delicious for 2 days. I kept mine in the microwave and when we wanted more, I nuked it on high for 1 1/2 mins.

Lessons learned: As I home-school I think there is a lesson in everything. Here my kids first learned how to take turns. The older ones also learned compassion with the fact that there was also things that their little 2 year old sister could do. They learned some more math skills with measuring out the ingredients and home-economics with using the stove top (with me watching and ready to take over if needed) and the oven. You could even teach how to estimate here. Have them guess how many pieces there are in all and with that you could also do fractions. See lessons just start coming out! Of course there are times when the only lesson that needs to be taught is spending time together and the memories made. My best childhood memory is making popcorn balls with my mom and while we waited, dancing the tango in the kitchen.