Peach Monkey Bread Muffins from scratch and refined sugar free! This is an easy recipe for homemade flaky biscuits shaped into monkey bread bites then coated with cinnamon and coconut sugar. And to celebrate the remaining days of peach season, we are adding fresh peaches and peach caramel to these muffins!
In a small saucepan (or skillet), add 1/3 of the cubed peaches, sugar, and butter. Stir to combine and cook over medium heat until the sugar starts to thicken (caramelize) and the peaches start to break down - about 5-8 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the caramel - we don't want a burned or bitter caramel.
While cooking, stir every so often to mix the peaches into the caramel. Towards the end of the cooking, stir in the cinnamon. Let the caramel cool - either in the pan or transfer to a heatproof jar or container - until ready to use.
Preheat the oven to 375F degrees and adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Line a muffin pan with 4 cupcake liners.
Cinnamon Sugar Coating
Add the cinnamon and sugar to a large ziploc bag, close, and shake to mix.
Biscuits / Muffins
The butter for the biscuits should be very cold. Cut the butter into small cubes and place in the freezer for about 5 minutes before starting to make the biscuits. Recommendation - You can even grate the butter - using a cheese grater - so you get small butter pieces that are easier to mix in the dough.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Add the cold butter cubes (or grated butter) and cold buttermilk. Using your hands or pastry cutter, 'cut' the butter into the flour until you have small pea-sized pieces of butter. If you grated the butter, you can just mix the dough with a wooden spoon. Mix just until all of the moisture has been absorbed by the flour. The dough will be scraggly and crumbly.
Pour the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Using your hands, form the dough into a rough rectangle. If the dough is sticky, sprinkle a little flour over the top. Fold the dough in half, and press into a rough rectangle again. Sprinkling more flour over the top as needed. Fold and press the dough 3 times (this makes flaky layers).
With a rolling pin or your hands, press the dough into approximately a 6-inch x 6-inch square. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Then divide each of the 4 pieces into 6 small pieces. Roll each of the small dough pieces into a ball. Add a few dough balls at a time to the ziploc bag with cinnamon sugar and and toss around to coat the dough.
Press the dough balls into the cupcake liners - 6 pieces per. Layer peach cubes in between each dough ball. Spoon the peach caramel over the top of each muffin. Then, sprinkle any of the leftover cinnamon sugar over each muffin.
Bake for 20-23 minutes, until the muffins are golden brown and bubbly. Cool the muffins in the pan set on a wire cooling rack for about 5 minutes, then remove from the pan. The muffins are best enjoyed slightly warm and the day they are baked!
Notes
You can swap the coconut sugar for granulated sugar 1:1.