Gorgonzola Monkey Bread

It's a two in one recipe! For potlucks, dinner parties, and any old occasion, I like to make my favorite bread recipe. It's versatile, extremely fast, and really easy to customize with sweet or savory toppings. The monkey bread was entirely Erik's idea, I might add, so I can take no credit for any proposals, sudden foodgasms, or, as he added in, "fans camping out on his front lawn" as a result of this recipe.

Bread
Ingredients (serves 4-6)
3 1/2 cups flour
2 1/4 tablespoons of yeast
3 tablespoons of sugar
1 1/2 cup of water, relatively hot, but not boiling- don't kill the yeast!
1/2 tablespoon of salt

1. Mix two cups of flour with the yeast, sugar, and salt and pour in the water. This will be your starter. Again, the water should be hot enough so that you could make a nice cup of tea out of it, but not too hot so that you could burn yourself. Mix that in and let it sit for fifteen minutes.
2. After that's done sitting, mix in the remaining one and a half cups of flour and knead until elastic and no longer sticky. Pop into an oiled bowl and cover tightly with Saran wrap and let it rise until the bread has doubled in size.
3. Once the bread has risen, and believe me, it'll be gigantic- it'll pop out of the Saran wrap and look ready to attack, knead again and shape it into a loaf.
5.Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-45 minutes and you'll have something like this.That's all good and fun. You can eat it with butter and jam, but if you want to keep going, omit the fifth step from the standard bread recipe and come on, kids. It's a lot of fun!

Gorgonzola Monkey Bread
Ingredients (serves 2-6)
Standard bread dough recipe, above
1 wedge of Gorgonzola cheese
Garlic bread spread or spice
1/4 stick of butter
3 tablespoons of parmesan cheese
1 egg1. Now that you have your bread dough, shape it into little balls, relatively evenly shaped. It will yield about 14-20, depending on how small or large you make them. Melt your butter and mix in the parmesan cheese.
2. Oil a glass baking dish and make your first layer of dough balls. On each ball, spread some of the garlic spread and spice, and pour on half of the butter and parmesan mixture. Evenly distribute some of the Gorgonzola as well.
3. Repeat with the second layer, making sure to fill in all the cracks and crannies in the baking dish that you didn't fill with the first layer, but also adding depth so that the layers pop up while baking.
4. Top with the remaining Gorgonzola, garlic spread and parmesan cheese, and brush with an egg wash. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes, and let cool. It will be very hot! If you have leftovers (HA HA HA!) you can just wrap it in plastic and put it in the freezer. It's easy to microwave as a snack.