Buffalo chicken monkey bread

This is a sponsored post by Challenge, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!

Exactly one week until Stuff-Your-Face Sunday—I mean, Super Bowl Sunday! If you want to serve up a winning recipe, look no further! I combined two favorite classic snacks—buffalo chicken dip and monkey bread—into the ultimate crowd-pleasing creation. (And by "crowd" I mean "family members" because large gatherings are obviously discouraged this year.)

For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of monkey bread, the recipe involves sticking biscuits in a bundt pan, pouring a buttery syrup on top, baking it, and then inverting the pan onto a stand. This is very similar, except instead if using a bundt pan, I made a football-shaped pan out of an aluminum foil casserole dish. Certainly, you could purchase a football cake pan, but this worked just as well. In the picture below, you can see how I bent the pan to look like a football.

In order to make a buffalo chicken version of monkey bread, I flattened each piece of biscuit dough, added 1.5 teaspoons of buffalo chicken dip to the center, and pinched and sealed the edges together before rolling them into balls. I used four 7.5-ounce cans of biscuit dough, and it was enough to fill the bottom of the football-shaped pan, plus a few extras in the center.

Like I mentioned, normally with monkey bread a buttery, sugary syrup is poured on top of the biscuits before baking. In this case, I mixed melted butter and buffalo sauce together and poured that on top of the biscuits before baking.

Once the monkey bread is done baking and it has cooled off a bit, there is one last finishing touch! Draw in the "football laces" with cream cheese.  I only use Challenge brand cream cheese because it's rich and tangy with no greasy aftertaste. Also, their products are 100% natural, without the use of the synthetic hormone rBST.

I recommend serving the monkey bread with ranch dressing, blue cheese dressing, and / or buffalo sauce for dipping.

Buffalo Chicken Monkey Bread

Ingredients

• 6 ounces Challenge cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup buffalo sauce or hot sauce, divided in half
• 1 cup cooked, shredded chicken
• 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 4, 7.5-ounce cans refrigerated biscuit dough
• 1/2 cup Challenge butter, melted
• Optional: Ranch dressing, blue cheese dressing, and / or buffalo sauce for dipping

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray pan with nonstick spray and set aside.
2. Mix together 4 ounces cream cheese and 1/2 cup buffalo sauce. Stir in chicken, blue cheese, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper.
3. Separate and flatten the biscuits. Add 1.5 teaspoons of buffalo chicken dip to the center of each piece of biscuit dough.
4. Pinch to seal the edges of the biscuit dough and roll into ball. Arrange evenly in pan.
5. Mix together melted butter and 1/2 cup buffalo sauce and pour over the top.
6. Cover pan with foil and bake for about 1 hour, or until biscuit dough is golden brown and cooked through.
7. Let cool for 5 minutes before inverting onto serving platter.
8. Snip corner of plastic bag, fill it with cream cheese, and decoratively pipe "laces" onto football.
9. Serve with ranch dressing, blue cheese dressing, and / or buffalo sauce for dipping.

Recipe inspired by Arlyn Osborne