BB: Monkey Dunkey Bread

Marie may not assign this one for a while, but I am going to write it up anyway. Instead of doing a half-recipe of the brioche dough this week, I made the full recipe of dough, divided it in half, and used one of those halves for Monkey Dunkey Bread. The usual Monkey Bread balls of dough dipped in butter (and flavoring like cinnamon sugar or a savory herb butter) are here stuffed with dark chocolate and dipped in a butter-brown sugar mixture. I'm lacking pictures for most of the shaping steps, as I was working as quickly as possible to minimize my dough handling problems with the somewhat sticky dough in my warmish kitchen. I was rather slap-dash on the shaping--my process was to grab a measured blob of dough, dust with flour, and squash it into a rough circle with the heel of my hand. Pry that up from the pastry mat, grab a few Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips and plop in the center, and gather edges and pinch together. Roughly roll the ball around a bit to seal it and shape it, but don't spend long on it to keep the dough from warming more and getting stickier. Place result on cookie sheet resting on an ice packet. Maybe I can try Rose's detailed process of rolling each ball to a 2" circle, thinning the edges, then placing the chocolate and pinching it to seal some other time...in mid winter, perhaps. :) Once all the dough balls are formed around their chocolate surprise, they are dipped in a sweet sauce and arranged in a tube pan. I shorted on the dipping sauce, using only 4 T. of butter instead of 5 and an eyeballed amount of brown sugar and corn syrup. It was plenty, though, with a little left over to drizzle over the pan of completed rolls before it went into the warming drawer to rise. My 6-cup Kugelhopf pan was just right for the half recipe. I baked the Monkey Dunkey bread in the evening, and couldn't resist tasting a couple of pieces warm from the oven despite thinking it suited as a breakfast bread. I decided to skip the caramel sauce despite my love of caramel, and indeed the touch of sweetness from the dunking mixture was just the right foil for the bittersweet chocolate and the rich brioche. The next morning I dropped the remains of the Monkey Dunkey Bread on the niece with the critical information that there was chocolate in the bread (we were all setting up for the (semi-)annual neighborhood yard sale), and she, the nephew, and sister-in-law all had some for breakfast, quickly heated in the microwave as Rose suggests. This one is a universal hit. I may try the full-on recipe with caramel glaze and ganache drizzle as well, but for us I suspect that will be far too sweet--and I'm a person who thinks caramel improves almost everything. Perhaps I'll do that version for a non-family audience sometime.