Sticky Rolls--AKA FLASH! Monkey Bread

My favorite recipe books are the ones lovingly compiled as fundraisers for churches and community groups. They include recipes for all kinds of dishes that are usually family friendly, easy, and frugal. I have a collection that includes my own books plus those from my mother’s and grandmother’s collections. Just browsing through the books takes me back to the covered dish suppers, family reunions, and holidays of my youth
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I went to one of these books back around 1995 when we were having guests for the weekend and I needed something to serve for breakfast. I found a recipe that was submitted by one of my cousins on the Richardson side for breakfast cinnamon buns. It looked like a modified version of Monkey Bread which I had eaten before but never made because monkey bread involved the time consuming chore of rolling small pieces of dough in a sugar cinnamon mixture.

This recipe call for breaking the dough into small pieces, but then the topping could just be poured on top of the dough
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Over the years I’ve stopped looking at the recipe and I just add the ingredients to fit the number of biscuits in the can. The part that never changes is how making these makes me think about my family, the novelty that biscuits come in a can, and my favorite kind of cookbook.

The view before baking

The Recipe in “you get the idea” format: 

• Use non-stick spray to coat bottom and sides of casserole dish
• Pull apart 10 canned biscuits and place pieces in dish
• Melt a stick of butter in a 2 cup glass measuring cup
• Add about a cup of brown sugar, a tablespoon of pancake syrup, teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of cinnamon
• Stir topping and pour over the biscuits.
• Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown—around 15 minutes.

I don’t eat sweets in the morning anymore so we have this for dessert now served warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

  “Y’all help yourself now.” (that means bon appetite in southern English)