The Rumored Hollywood Origins Of Monkey Bread

Who doesn't love a good monkey bread recipe? Not only does it taste great — it's made from dough balls dipped in melted butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar, then baked to sweet, sticky perfection in a Bundt pan — but it's also fun to eat. It might be hard to imagine gooey monkey bread as a glamorous dessert, but this pull-apart treat was made famous by a Hollywood actor and even served in the White House.

Monkey bread first gained popularity in the United States in the 1940s. Film actor ZaSu Pitts, who published a cookbook called "Candy Hits," is believed to have gotten the recipe from Nashville and made it for her Hollywood pals. In 1945, the Winnipeg Free Press printed Pitts' monkey bread recipe. Eleven years later, "Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, Revised and Enlarged," included a recipe for Hungarian coffee cake made from sweet yeast dough rolled in melted butter, nuts, and a cinnamon-sugar mixture — monkey bread under a different name.

Nancy Reagan, the Hollywood actor who married film-star-turned-politician Ronald Reagan, brought monkey bread even more fame. The first lady served monkey bread on special occasions during the Reagan presidency, according to cookbook author Henry Haller, a former White House chef. Haller included Reagan's monkey bread recipe in "The White House Family Cookbook," commenting that Mrs. Reagan reserved richer dishes like monkey bread for holidays and other celebrations. Reagan sometimes served her monkey bread with butter and marmalade; no wonder she thought it was an indulgent treat.  

Decades before Hollywood celebrities made monkey bread famous, Hungarian Jewish immigrants brought a sticky pull-apart dessert to the United States in the late 1800s. It's impossible to pinpoint the exact date of the recipe's arrival, but the biggest wave of Hungarian immigration to the United States began in the 1890s and ended in the early 1910s. The recipe for aranygaluska, or golden dumpling, came to American shores with some of these immigrants. Perhaps this is how Betty Crocker's Hungarian coffee cake got its name.

According to James Beard Award-winning author Joan Nathan, who wrote "Jewish Cooking in America," aranygaluska is made from a yeast dough that is cut into circles after the dough has risen. (Some aranygaluska recipes tell you to shape the dough into balls.) The puffy circles are dipped in melted butter, and then into a mixture of sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar, ground walnuts, and cake or cookie crumbs. The circles are placed into a cake pan, with jam spread between each layer of dough circles, then baked.

Aranygaluska can be cut into slices, but it is usually pulled apart, just like monkey bread. It is often served with custard, ice cream, or white wine applesauce. You can add your own star power to monkey bread by playing with the ingredients. Use flavored coffee creamer to add richness and spice or drizzle bourbon-maple caramel between layers of sugary dough balls.