Buttery pull-apart bread, perfect for sharing

A Bundt of buttery ham and Swiss joy

The Bite subscribers can now join the conversation — click the speech bubble icon to leave a comment or click the heart to like this post. Last week, we got nostalgic about rice casserole. This week, we’re continuing our month-long series on turning common sides into weeknight dinner stars. Now in the spotlight? The humble crescent roll. Let’s dive in!

I come from a big “appetizers for dinner” family. You can see it in the little rituals: call my mom before any major event — New Year’s Eve, the Super Bowl, or just a random December day that feels festive — and ask what she’s making. The answer is always one of two things: lasagna, or appetizers. Usually from Costco, mass-baked for maximum variety. Birthday dinners are a tactical operation: you order the dip, I’ll handle the macaroni and cheese balls, you grab the sliders. Together, it adds up to a full meal. I’ve even joked to my boyfriend, Stephen, about starting a matchmaking service—not for romance, but for people seeking a like-minded friend to share tapas, dim sum, or a Chili’s Triple Dipper.

My willingness to abandon a single entree for a few little bites is inherited. My late grandmother, in particular, had a predictable, beloved spread: shrimp cocktail with horseradish-laced sauce; the supermarket veggie platter with ranch; crockpot meatballs simmered in barbecue sauce and grape jelly; salsa with Tostito’s scoops. She deployed it at family gatherings a few times a year for decades.

But the crown jewel was her funeral sandwiches — which, despite the somber name, made an appearance anytime there was a crowd to feed. Little baked ham-and-Swiss sliders on soft Hawaiian rolls, doused in a butter sauce spiked with Dijon, brown sugar and Worcestershire, sprinkled with poppy seeds, dusted with garlic powder and baked until the tops were shiny and golden. Lifting the foil released a rush of buttery, tangy steam. The Swiss cheese stretched like taffy when you pulled a slider apart. The sauce seeped into the bread, leaving fingers gloriously sticky. The poppy seeds crackled gently under teeth. 

Each bite was a messy, sweet-savory symphony — comfort food with a little theatrical flair.

After my grandmother passed away, the tradition of making them passed too. At holidays or graduations or milestone birthdays, we’d joke about phantom hunger pangs, gesturing to the empty spot where the foil tray should’ve been. Then the moment would fade, swallowed by the event itself. But this year has been different.

Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s some health scares and big moves, but nostalgia has been hitting harder. And then came last week’s “Great British Baking Show.” Bread Week. The technical: savory monkey bread — buttery dough balls baked together in a Bundt, meant to be pulled apart and shared. Some contestants went playful (cheddar and pear, olive and rosemary), but the winner, Tom, leaned French in his flavors: steak, French onion soup and, most promisingly, croque monsieur.

That name alone delights me — it roughly translates to“Mr. Crunch” — and the sandwich itself even more: ham and cheese layered with creamy béchamel, broiled until bubbling and golden, essentially a Parisian grilled cheese in a tuxedo. Watching Tom turn that into sharable, pull-apart monkey bread made me wonder: if a croque monsieur could get the Bundt-pan treatment, why not a funeral sandwich too? Imagine it: buttery, cheesy, sticky, poppy-seeded magic, one dough ball at a time.

I got to work: 

The dough

You can absolutely make your own — I love this King Arthur recipe, if you’re feeling ambitious — but in the immortal words of Ina, store-bought really is fine here. The trick was finding something with the right balance: a little sweetness, enough backbone to be stuffed and twisted, and that yeasty rise that makes monkey bread more than a party trick. Biscuit dough, common in sweet versions, felt too squat and heavy. Frozen dinner rolls were closer, but they puffed into soft clouds that collapsed under filling. Canned crescent dough, improbably, was just right: pliable without tearing, sturdy without getting tough, and still capable of a respectable rise.

Two cans divided neatly into six to eight small balls each — the beginnings of a Bundt-pan constellation.

The filling

Sticking with the funeral sandwich theme, I kept the filling simple but deliberate: honey-baked ham, sliced thin at the deli counter and then hand-torn at home so the edges curled into salty ribbons; Swiss cheese, snipped with scissors into irregular little confetti. You can choose baby Swiss if you like creamy mildness, but I love the nutty tang of an aged wedge — it lingers just enough to remind you it’s there.

I first tried a rustic version — ham and cheese tucked haphazardly among the buttered, glazed dough balls — and it was lovely in a messy, casserole-ish way. But stuffing the cheese and ham into each ball turned out to be the thrillier version. Each bite became its own surprise package: a tidy, glossy orb that burst when pulled apart, stretching cheese in gooey strings. Sharing became tidier, too — or at least tidier until the glaze made its move.

Tip: Chill the dough before shaping, and keep the finished stuffed balls in a big bowl in the fridge while you work. Cool dough holds its shape better, standing up to glaze and stacking without slumping.

The glaze

This part is pure inheritance. Straight from my grandmother’s recipe card: melted butter, grainy Dijon, a dollop of mayo, a splash of Worcestershire, garlic and onion powders, a little brown sugar, and a shower of poppy seeds. On sandwiches, she brushed it over the Hawaiian rolls. For monkey bread, I rolled each dough ball in half the glaze before baking, then brushed the rest over the golden crown as it emerged from the oven, still steaming.

The smell was almost exactly the same — sweet, sharp, buttery — only bigger, more enveloping, as if her tray of sliders had expanded into an entire planet of dough.

The bake

I’d recently treated myself to a deep red nonstick Bundt pan and this recipe became its christening. My main worry was that the sticky glaze would weld itself permanently to the ridges, so I took out a full insurance policy: nonstick spray, parchment strips fitted like little bandages across the bottom, flour up the sides. Overboard? Possibly. But when it finally came out of the oven — improbably perfect, golden brown, the Bundt ridges crisped and glistening — I felt a little giddy. 

Heartening, really, that something stitched together from grief, nostalgia, and crescent dough could look so triumphant. I snapped a photo and sent it to my mom and sister with a breathless description; within minutes, I was officially booked to make it for Christmas Eve.

In the meantime, though, it’s been quietly folding into my everyday life. It makes an effortless centerpiece for a lazy Sunday brunch, the kind of thing that invites everyone to reach in with their hands. It’s equally at home as a Tuesday night dinner for friends, especially with a sharp arugula salad on the side — peppery leaves glossed in a citrus vinaigrette that cuts through the butter and cheese. Every time I make it, no matter the occasion, it turns the table just a little more celebratory.

Here’s how to make it at home:

Funeral Sandwich Monkey Bread

Serves 8–10

Ingredients

• 2 cans refrigerated crescent roll dough (8 oz each)
  

• ½ pound deli-sliced honey ham, torn into bite-sized ribbons
  

• 6 oz Swiss cheese (baby or aged), cut into small confetti-like pieces
  

• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
  

• 2 Tbsp grainy Dijon mustard
  

• 1 Tbsp mayonnaise
  

• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  

• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
  

• ½ tsp garlic powder
  

• ½ tsp onion powder
  

• 1 Tbsp poppy seeds

Instructions

1. Prep the pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Generously coat a Bundt pan with nonstick spray. For extra insurance, line the bottom with parchment strips and lightly flour the sides.
   

2. Make the glaze. In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, Dijon, mayonnaise, Worcestershire, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, and poppy seeds.
   

3. Form the dough balls. Unroll crescent dough and cut into 6–8 even pieces per can. Working one piece at a time, flatten slightly, then place a bit of torn ham and Swiss cheese in the center. Pinch edges closed to form a stuffed ball.
   

4. Glaze the dough balls. Toss each stuffed ball in about half the glaze, placing them in a large bowl in the fridge as you go to keep them cool.
   

5. Assemble. Layer glazed balls evenly in the Bundt pan. Don’t pack them too tightly; they need room to puff and meld together.
   

6. Bake. Bake for 30–35 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil.
   

7. Finish. Let rest 5–10 minutes, then carefully invert onto a serving plate. Brush with the remaining glaze while still warm.
   

8. Serve. Pull apart with your hands (or cut into wedges if you’re feeling polite). Best enjoyed warm.

Hey there! October is creeping in, which means it’s pumpkin, squash, apple and pear season. I’d love to hear from you: what seasonal produce do you want to cook with, but never seem to know what to do with? Scroll up to let me know in the comments, or just send me a quick email at [email protected] — I’m taking notes!

Support our food journalism. Become a Salon member today!

What to make this week: Hong Kong-style egg sandwiches

Speaking of sandwiches, the genius of the Hong Kong egg sandwich is its technique: eggs beaten with a slurry of potato starch and evaporated milk, then coaxed in a hot pan into trembling sheets that layer over one another in under ten seconds. In this recipe, Lucas Sin describes it as “scrambled eggs on untoasted white bread,” but that undersells the sleight of hand. The starch and milk lend the eggs an almost custardy elasticity, so when you press them between slices of milk bread, the structure holds while the texture collapses into velvet.

It’s the kind of breakfast (or breakfast for dinner) that rewards precision — the skillet has to be hot, the whisking thorough, the folding brisk—but it’s also forgiving in the way of the best diner food. You can stop at the austere pleasure of eggs and bread, or fold in crisped corned beef, or let satay beef glossed with soy and peanut butter spill over the edges. Either way, you’ve made something miraculous out of three eggs, a whisk and a pan.

What we’re reading and watching: “Soju Party” + “House of Guinness”

Something about the calendar tipping toward fall sets off the “time to celebrate!” bell in my brain. Maybe it’s the drumbeat of birthdays that stack up in quick succession (eight in the family between late August and November, a whole layer cake of candles and cards), or maybe it’s my own birthday, which butts right against Halloween.  Layered on top of that is the early itch to start sketching out menus for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s. No wonder I fell so hard, so fast, for Irene Yoo’s new cookbook, “Soju Party: How to Drink (and Eat) Like a Korean,” released September 9.

The book reads like a perfectly choreographed night out: it starts with a primer on Korean spirits, moves into “anju” (the savory drinking snacks designed to extend an evening), and crescendos toward elaborate cocktails, party-scale batched drinks and the kind of bracing hangover cures that make the promise of another round feel plausible. I’ve already dog-eared the page for Yoo’s kimchi carbonara, which she pairs with a crisp soju spritz — an invitation, really, to turn an ordinary night into a minor holiday.

And speaking of rituals worth elevating, I’ve just started “House of Guinness,” a period drama set between 1868 Dublin and New York in the shadow of patriarch Benjamin Guinness’s death. His four heirs, each dragging their own secrets behind them, are left to steer the fate of the brewery. Steven Knight — of “Peaky Blinders” and “Spencer” fame, and soon-to-be “James Bond” scribe — is at the helm here, which explains the show’s mix of brooding intrigue and glossy allure. The marketing line calls it “dark themes with a frothy top.”Seems like something to kick back and try with a pint of what James Joyce once apparently called “the wine of Ireland.”

Until next week,

Ashlie Stevens, senior food editor

ALSO FROM SALON

In partnership with

The Daily Newsletter for Intellectually Curious Readers

Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.

Join for free today!