{Pinterest} BAKING: Gingerbread Cheesecake Bites and Mason Jar Monkey Bread

Each year during the holidays, I do a little baking for my co-workers, our neighbors and to have for special guest. This year I ran across these two recipes on Pinterest and had to give them a try. Both were delicious and will be making an appearance again.

Gingerbread Cheesecake Bites
1 (30 oz) package Pillsbury Gingerbread Cookie Dough (refrigerated section)
4 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Roll two teaspoons of cookie dough into a ball for each cookie. Place balls of dough into paper liners mini cupcake/muffin pan. Make a well/indentation into each ball of dough with a flour dipped mini rolling pin or the back of a measurement teaspoon.
Beat room temperature cream cheese with powdered sugar. Stir in vanilla. Place filling into a piping bag, cut off edge of bag. Place one teaspoon or so of filling into each area of cookie dough.
Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes or until cookie tested with tooth pick comes out almost clean.
*Don’t over fill the cookies with filling as they will rise when baked.
Let cool before removing from cupcake pan.

Meghan's Notes:
I was not able to find the prepared Gingerbread Cookie Dough, so I used a package of Duncan Hines Cookie Mix and prepared according to the instructions. The mix was super sticky so I also had to put this into a plastic bag to pipe into the muffin tins. Prior to forming the indention for the filling, I had to chill mine in the frig for about 5-10 minutes to make the dough more firm.

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Monkey Bread
{baked in 8 ounce mason jars} Makes 4 servings
What you’ll need:
10 refrigerated biscuits – cut into quarters
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray mason jars with cooking spray and place them into a deep sided baking tray.
2. Into a bowl, add: sugars, and cinnamon. Whisk together to combine. Place cut biscuits pieces into sugar mixture. Toss to combine and coat well.
3. Evenly distribute coated biscuit pieces between the jars. Adding a little extra of the sugar mixture as you go. Fill only 3/4 of the way up the jar {to allow for bread to rise and not overflow}
4. Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes until monkey bread has risen and is golden and bubbly. Allow jars to cool slightly prior to serving.

How precious are these? I tied a fork onto each jar so they were always ready to eaten!
My Notes: I was surprised this recipe did not call for butter. And you really did not miss it but adding a little butter never hurts either right? So feel free to slip some in if you want. I might also suggest cutting your biscuits into smaller pieces than directed- just a personal preference.

Let me know if you make either of these and if liked them as much as I did. Hope you enjoy!