Birthday Brunch: Apple Cinnamon Monkey Bread! #WarmUpYourDay

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #WarmUpYourDay #CollectiveBias

In our household, we hop right from holiday season to crazy birthday season. In the span of less than 3 weeks, we have FOUR birthdays!  Gabby is a lucky gal because she is all alone in nice, warm June.  We all have our own birthday breakfast requests:  Ricky loves French toast, the twins like chocolate chip pancakes and I love monkey bread.  Birthdays aside, this is a perfect addition to any brunch menu.  I love to serve with a fruit salad drizzled with honey, scrambled eggs, Greek yogurt and a Mimosa.  Why not, right?  

Fun tip: for kiddos, make a faux-Mimosa with flavored bubbly water.  The girls had strawberry water in theirs and thought it was SO cool.   We also like to sprinkle the tops of our drinks with powdered sugar--it's something my dad always did growing up. SO tasty if you rim the glasses with it and add a strawberry. 

On January 16th, I turned the big 3-1.  Since I wasn't working all weekend, I wanted to be a lazy bones.  It's very rare when we are all home together on a weekend and I wanted to take advantage of it! Friday night was Japanese Steak House night.  Not quite sure what we were thinking taking three little ones to a hibachi grill, but it was SO MUCH FUN! It wasn't budget friendly, but it was a memorable experience.  The girls LOVED seeing the crazy tricks and they gobbled up their food. Score! 

Saturday we headed to the store to pick up goodies for my Sunday birthday brunch. Since my breakfast request was monkey bread, I wanted to go above and beyond: apple cinnamon! The theme of the weekend was simplicity, so I took a little help from the store by using Pepperidge Farm Apple Cinnamon sweet rolls at Walmart.  The girls piled in the cart and started arguing 2 minutes into the store. That's when I decided to add "mimosa" to my breakfast brunch list: Cook's Spumante is a MUST.  It's a bubbly wine that is sweet, not too dry and perfect for mimosas and Bellinis (also super budget friendly!). Another must: 100% Florida Orange Juice.  We are a Tropicana family, but whatever floats your boat!

That evening, we had a movie night and I made Ricky watch Gone Girl.  When I read the book last year, I always ended up doing it late a night.  Ricky would get super annoyed because I would wake him up from deep sleep to freak out about what was going on.  I saw the movie when it came out for a girls' night, Ricky still had no desire to see it or read the book.  Now guess who is talking about the movie non-stop? Mr. Skeptical.  Go rent it, if you haven't yet!! Gillian Flynn's books are all amazing. 

Sunday morning, while Ricky was making the eggs and the girls were making a fruit salad, I tackled the monkey bread.  It was so simple, I had it in the oven and was enjoying my coffee while they were still cooking!

Apple Cinnamon Monkey Bread

Here's what you need:

• 3 containers of Pepperidge Farm Apple sweet rolls
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

1.  Preheat the oven to 375.  Open up the sweet roll containers and set aside frosting and apple mixture.
• Side note: anyone else terrified of pop-open containers? My heart races. 
2. Cut each individual roll in fourths. Place in a large bowl.  Toss with brown sugar and cinnamon. 
3. Add TWO packages of apple mixture (set aside the other one for later).  Mix together again.  
4. Spray a large casserole dish with non-stick spray.  A bundt pan works too! Scatter the sweet roll pieces around the pan.  It's okay if they stick together a bit!
5. Bake 20-25 minutes, until almost cooked.
6. While monkey bread is in the oven, mix together the remaining apple mixture and the frosting packets.  (note: we just used 2 frosting packets...it was more than enough).  
7. Remove monkey bread from oven and spread with frosting mixture.
8. Return to oven for 10-12 more minutes, until golden brown.
9. Enjoy!  

Our brunch was a success and I truly enjoyed my relaxing birthday weekend.  With the girls being in school until almost 4:00 during the week, I feel like I don't have as much time with them! I love seeing how much they are growing and maturing since they've started school--they crack me up all day long!  This weekend we have the twins' birthday and so far they are actually requesting this monkey bread instead of pancakes! I'm okay with that!

What are your birthday breakfast traditions?