• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Recipes
    • Smoothies
    • Breakfast + Brunch
    • Sides
    • Snacks
    • Cooking Basics
    • Dressings & Sauces
    • Desserts
  • Wellness Faves
    • My Wellness + Beauty Favorites
    • Beautycounter
  • About
    • About The Blog
    • Get In Touch
  • Soups + Stews
  • Salads

Free Your Fork

menu icon
go to homepage
  • Recipes
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
  • subscribe
    search icon
    Homepage link
    • Recipes
    • About
    • Contact
    • Subscribe
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
  • ×

    Home » Recipes » Desserts

    Published: Feb 13, 2017 · Modified: Nov 23, 2022 by Lauren Kenson

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread

    Jump to Recipe

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread - Easy recipe for Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread! This semi-homemade dessert uses ready-to-bake biscuit dough, brie, cranberry sauce (or jam), dried cranberries, brown sugar, & spices. A fun & simple recipe to make with friends! ♥ | freeyourfork.com

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread! If a cinnamon roll, a sticky bun, baked French toast, and bread pudding had a dessert-baby it would be this monkey bread. Don't ask me how four things could hypothetically have one baby. Or point out the fact that that desserts cannot procreate. Maybe I botched the metaphor.

    Whatever. THAT is not the important thing.

    Did you hear what I just said is happening right now?? We are making a DESSERT.

    I’m breaking my food blog recipe "fast" (aka that little unplanned hiatus I told you about last week) with the holy grail of unapologetically sweet foods, Monkey Bread. Another in the -ISH category of the healthy(ish) food niche that this blog finds itself in around any and every holiday.

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread - Easy recipe for Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread! This semi-homemade dessert uses ready-to-bake biscuit dough, brie, cranberry sauce (or jam), dried cranberries, brown sugar, & spices. A fun & simple recipe to make with friends! ♥ | freeyourfork.com

    As promised, today’s recipe is a Valentine’s Day dessert. It’s sweet, it’s shareable, AND it even has red in it. Checks all the mandatory hallmark boxes.

    And it is a labor of love (if say you’re making this solo at 10 am on a weekday like I may or may not have done when these pictures were taken). But it goes quickly when you divide the labor among many hands. Like say mid-movie marathon activity for Galentine’s Day with the girls (Parks & Rec die-hard fans where you at? If you have not already watched this brilliant ugly-belly-laugh-until-it-hurts show, I will excuse you to go Netflix binge every season ever. Really. Please go, NOW. I will wait).

    Once baked it’s easy to enjoy sliced into neat wedges and served on little plates. Or (my preference) ditch the utensils altogether and just have at it. This is finger-food at it's finest. I have mixed feelings about that combination of words but it has never really been so fitting as when talking about THIS dessert right here, so "finger food" it is (okay, ew. I still kind of sort of don't like it. But there it is. I already wrote it. TWICE).

    Thanks to the butter-sugar mixture - each sweet little pocket pulls away from the pack easily and once it does, it is a two-bite deal before it’s gone. Easy-eats for a crowd. Or enjoyed while sitting on the floor watching Doctor Who re-runs and look up to find you’ve eaten a large fraction of the monkey bread ring and there is NOT A SOUL in sight to blame it on except your own sticky dessert fingers. Oh well. Worse Wednesdays have happened. This is a judgment free zone.

    All this recipe really is --> Ready to bake dough + creamy cheese + sweet & fruity filling (dealer’s choice – you can use anything vaguely like jelly // jam // fruit preserves // compote). All baked together with melted butter, sugar, and dried cranberries layered in between. You see why it's going to be good right? Butter + sugar alone would handle the whole dessert thing nicely but you add in a soft French cheese and it's GAME OVER.

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread - Easy recipe for Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread! This semi-homemade dessert uses ready-to-bake biscuit dough, brie, cranberry sauce (or jam), dried cranberries, brown sugar, & spices. A fun & simple recipe to make with friends! ♥ | freeyourfork.com

    Creamy, melty brie stuffed into little buttery pockets of biscuit dough. Biscuit dough that you thankfully did NOT have to make, by the way. But rather somebody else’s lovingly created pastry that you are cracking open and not thinking twice about it not being homemade. I used THIS one that I found at Whole Foods.

    I had some leftover cranberry sauce needing to be used up, so I used that in this recipe. If you don’t have cranberry sauce (because you’re not a holiday hoarder like yours truly) then swap it for whatever jam you do have on hand, strawberry // cherry would be B-O-M-B in this. If you want to keep with the Valentine’s Day theme, just make it something ruby hued and roll with it.

    RELATED: Whole Fruit Cranberry Sauce

    The dried cranberries are my favorite part. The brown-sugar-butter mixture seeps into them, warming and plumping them up as it bakes. They get irresistibly soft and chewy like in fresh-baked cinnamon raisin bread.

    If you don’t have (or don’t prefer) brie, then a little dab of cream cheese or even honey goat cheese would be perfection in this too. The only requisite is that it be creamy and pair well with something sweet. You can’t go wrong with that.

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread - Easy recipe for Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread! This semi-homemade dessert uses ready-to-bake biscuit dough, brie, cranberry sauce (or jam), dried cranberries, brown sugar, & spices. A fun & simple recipe to make with friends! ♥ | freeyourfork.com

    This is an easily customizable recipe where you can do what you want. Whatever you want. If you like things crunchy, layer in walnuts (or don't). Take the chopped biscuits and either stuff em all, stuff most (like I did), stuff half, or don't stuff em at ALL. Hate cranberries and hate raisins? Make like you're unsubscribing from an email list and OPT OUT. Whatever you do, just put it all together in a bundt pan, bake it, and you will not be sad about it. Or anything else for that matter while you’re riding that sweet sweet sugar high.

    By the way, the reason why I didn’t stuff all the biscuit dough is because I really like having multiple textures in a dish.

    OKAY OKAY. And because I got tired stuffing them by myself. Are you happy NOW?

    No shame in my game. My laziness to finish stuffing the rest yielded accidentally incredible results. The small unstuffed pieces mixed in with larger, stuffed pieces makes for an awesome interplay of doughy // soft // gooey bits with the more bready // chewy sugar-dusted pieces. Like when you get those crispy corners of a cinnamon roll mixed with the soft, caramelized sweet center. Yes, THAT.

    So…hah. Laziness FTW.

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread Top

    Brie Stuffed Monkey Bread

    A semi-homemade dessert using store-bought biscuit dough stuffed with creamy Brie and tangy cranberry sauce. And covered in a buttery, sweet cinnamon-spice mixture.
    5 from 1 vote
    Print Pin Rate
    Course: Dessert
    Cuisine: American
    Prep Time: 25 minutes
    Cook Time: 35 minutes
    Servings: 12 servings
    Calories:
    Author: Lauren Kenson | Free Your Fork

    Ingredients

    • 2 cans of ready to bake biscuit dough approx. 16 biscuits
    • ¾ c cranberry sauce*
    • 1 wedge of Brie rind trimmed**
    • ½ c dried cranberries

    Cinnamon-Sugar Mix

    • 2 tbs cinnamon
    • ¼ teaspoon cloves
    • ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
    • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
    • ½ c sugar

    Brown Sugar-Butter Mix

    • ¾ c brown sugar
    • ¾ stick butter melted

    Instructions

    • PREP: Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly grease a non-stick Bundt pan. In a small dish, microwave the butter until just melted and stir in the brown sugar. Mix the white sugar and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger) together in a Ziploc bag and shake until well combined. Set all aside.
    • THE DOUGH: Divide the 16 biscuits as follows. Take 4 biscuits and chop each one into eight pieces. Place the chopped biscuits in the sugar & spice bag, seal and shake until well coated, remove from bag and set aside. Then take the remaining 12 biscuits and chop them into fourths (set these aside for the next step, these will be the ones we stuff).
    • STUFF POCKETS: Using the biscuit pieces you set aside, press each one between your hands and use your fingers to pull the dough into small flat rounds, being careful not to rip the dough. Place a small amount of Brie and equal small amount of cranberry sauce in the center of a round and fold the dough over the filling to cover, pinch with your fingers to seal it into a small ball.
    • LAYER & BAKE: Roll the stuffed dough balls in the sugar spice mix and place a layer into greased pan. Sprinkle half of the dried cranberries and half of the sugar coated dough bits from earlier. Then repeat this layer once you've finished stuffing the remaining dough balls. Finally pour the melted butter and brown sugar mix over the top. Bake for 30-35 min. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping upside down onto a plate to serve.

    Notes

    Adapted from Pillsbury Grands Monkey Bread recipe
    *Or other tart sweet jam, like cherry or strawberry
    **Or cream cheese

    Nutrition

    Serving: 1serving

    More Desserts

    • Peppermint Mocha Brownies Stacked
      Peppermint Mocha Brownies
    • Apple Pumpkin Butter Toast
      Apple Pumpkin Butter
    • Cardamom Rice Krispie Treats Stack
      Cardamom Rice Krispie Treats
    • Chocolate Avocado Pudding Cups - We are loving this simple, 7-ingredient vegan dessert recipe for Chocolate Avocado Pudding Cups! Avocado + Cocoa + Peanut Butter + Banana + Coconut Nectar + Vanilla + Salt ♥ Just can't get enough! | freeyourfork.com
      Chocolate Avocado Pudding

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

      Leave a comment, question, or rate this recipe Cancel reply

      Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

      Recipe Rating




      This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    1. Aimee says

      February 18, 2017 at 4:39 pm

      Okay, I have yet to try out my hand at Monkey Bread but you may have just convinced me with this dessert baby!!

      Reply
      • Lauren Kenson says

        March 06, 2017 at 2:46 pm

        I hope you get a chance to try out Monkey Bread sometime soon Aimee - it is EVERYTHING good in life (chewy bread + sweet cinnamon sugar HEAVEN)

        Thanks for the comment, let me know how you like it!

        xo,
        Lauren

        Reply

    Primary Sidebar

    Hi, I'm Lauren! I'm the recipe creator & food blogger behind Free Your Fork. Around here we're all about healthy living without obsessing. I hope these made-for-real-life, easy recipes bring a little joy to your kitchen today - happy cooking!

    More about me →

    Fast Weeknight Recipes

    • Overhead shot of a tray of oven baked nachos loaded with toppings.
      Oven Baked Nachos (16+ Topping Ideas!)
    • Overhead shot of a white bowl filled with gluten free ramen soup and topped with a soft boiled egg.
      Gluten Free Ramen (Quick & Easy!)
    • Honey balsamic vinaigrette being spooned out of a clear glass cup.
      Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette
    • Easy Roasted Broccoli

    Quick Breakfast Recipes

    • Easy Overnight Oats
    • Blueberry Spinach Smoothie (Quick & Easy!)
    • Glass jars of banana chia pudding with a gold spoon being dipped in.
      Banana Chia Pudding
    • Tropical Papaya Boats

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    About

    • Privacy Policy
    • Disclaimer

    Newsletter

    • Subscribe for new recipes

    Contact

    • Contact

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Copyright © 2020 Brunch Pro on the Brunch Pro Theme

    88 shares