Blueberry Cream Cheese Monkey Bread

Why is this known as monkey bread? I have no idea. But, clearly, monkeys have good taste. Another one of the dessert/breakfast dishes I gravitate toward, and a great way to deplete the blueberry stash in my freezer. Where I come from, this recipe is, technically, cheating - like bringing a bucket of KFC chicken to a potluck - because it relies on a premade ingredient. But it's also nice to have a few of these easy recipes on hand for when you unexpectedly need to produce dessert, or breakfast. We had it for Saturday brunch. I want to try it using a standard sweet yeast roll dough recipe now instead of the canned biscuits, and I'll let you know if that turns out any good (how can it not?).

This recipe originally came from Kraft. I fiddled with the ratios and added blueberries. It makes one sweet purple mass. The recipe can be made ahead and refrigerated overnight before baking.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Monkey Bread
1/2C chopped pecans
1/2C butter
1/3C maple-flavored pancake syrup
1/2C sugar
1t ground cinnamon
3 cans refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (10 biscuits per can)
12oz cream cheese
3C blueberries, fresh or thawed from frozen

Sprinkle pecans in the bottom of a greased bundt or tube pan.

Melt 2T butter. Stir in maple syrup and pour over pecans in pan. Sprinkle 1C of the blueberries over maple syrup and pecans.

Melt remaining butter in shallow bowl.

Mix sugar and cinnamon together in shallow bowl.

Cut the cream cheese in 30 equal cubes.

Pop the biscuit cans open. Press each biscuit out to about 3" diameter. Roll a cube of cream cheese in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place the cream cheese cube in the center of the flattened biscuit and close the biscuit around it, sealing it into a ball. Dip the biscuit ball in the melted butter, then into the cinnamon sugar and place in the prepared pan. Repeat with 14 more biscuits.

Spread the remaining blueberries over the dough balls in the pan. Continue making cream-cheese filled dough balls with the rest of the biscuits.

Drizzle any remaining butter over the now filled pan. Sprinkle any remaining cinnamon sugar over, as well. At this point, the filled pan can be refrigerated overnight, if desired.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Bake for 40 minutes. Let sit for a few minutes, then invert onto a serving plate. Scrape any goodies stuck in the pan onto the plate as well and serve warm.

If there are any leftovers, they can be reheated for a few seconds in the microwave to original yummy gooeyness.