Buttery pull-apart bread, perfect for sharing

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:

(Ashlie Stevens ) Funeral sandwich monkey bread

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.

This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.