Monkeying Around

Monkeying around to make some Monkey bread. Heard of them but never got to try them. It was curiosity about its name that attracted me to it. Common sense tells me there's no monkey in it, so what's the monkey about it then??

According to Wiki, this is an American bread. However, the origin of its name is uncertain. Possibly because it resembles the monkey puzzle tree or the act of people pulling at the bread when eating it is reminiscent of monkey behaviour. The bread is made by baking little balls of dough coated with butter and sugar in a cake pan.

I chose this recipe to follow mainly because I wanted to use up some cream cheese and needed to make some bread for breakfast, tomorrow. I knew most monkey breads are sweet breads, in fact very sweet bread, in some cases, sticky and gooey too. But this one didn't look too sweet, sticky nor gooey. However, I started feeling a little uneasy while making it, the amount of sugar was very high by my standards. There was no backing out at this point, i ended up reducing it all the way. I didn't reduce the amount used for the dough, for the coating, i used only 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup for fillings and the toppings 3 tablespoons.

I didn't have a bundt pan, make do with my chiffon pan instead. Glad that it still turned out looking pretty. The lemon coating added a nice touch to its already rustic look, like cobblestones to me. I was contemplating whether to go without the topping, but glad that i didn't omit it. Apart from making it pretty, it played an important role in the overall taste.

Verdict?

Tasted good. Glad that I reduced the amount of sugar, it was at an acceptable level for the family. It maybe because of this that it's not sticky which i do not mind at all. The combination of the lemon coating and the cream cheese filling gave it a nice flavour and breakaway from an overly sweet taste. It was soft, tasted more like cake than bread to me, though I am not too sure if it should be so :)

Posted in: Bread,Cheese