Starting Out My Journey As a Doctor to Be

Thursday, February 25, 2010

of Monkey and Bread

it has been ages since i last blogged. and i think i have grown since i last made my appearance here.

honestly.

because within this period, i finally learnt how to use Stata, nothing fancy, just Mann-Whitney Test and Chi-Squared-Test but still, don't you think that they sound really really cool? and I have been volunteering for the University Welcome Centre and Orientation Week too, now i know ALL about the enrolment process and I know where the student centres for all the different faculties are by heart. too bad all of these are not examinable.

oh and i discovered some really interesting thing in terms of baking too.

do u know that

+

=

and people this is Monkey Bread. (recipe)

i know u r curious. I was too so I googled and wiki-ed and did some extensive research:-

According to Wikipedia: Monkey bread, also called Hungarian coffee cake, golden crown, pinch-me cake and bubbleloaf, is a sticky, gooey pastry served as a breakfast treat.[1] The origin of the term monkey bread is uncertain. Possible etymologies include that the bread resembles the monkey puzzle tree, [2] or the act of several people pulling at the bread is reminiscent of monkey behavior.[citation needed]

According to FoodTimeline:"Monkey bread. A sweet yeast bread, sometimes mixed with currants, formed from balls of dough, laid next to one another, which combine during baking. The origin of the name is unknown, though it has been suggested that the bread resembles the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), whose prickly branches make it difficult to climb. There is also a fruit called "monkey bread," from the baobab tree...of Africa, but there is not evidence of any connection between it and baked bread. It is probably that the name comes from the appearance of the baked itself, which resembles a bunch on monkeys jumbled together."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 208)

"Since monkeys are known for gleefully pulling at, well, everything, it makes sense that an audience-participation loaf should be called monkey bread. Formed of balls of dough and baked in a ring mold, monkey bread emerges as golden puffs that are irresistible to both hand and eye. The idea is that you pick it apart like a bunch of . . . that it's more fun than a barrel of. . . . You get the idea.

---"Just Say Dough," Michael Boodro, The New York Times, February 23, 2003 (Section 6; Page 64)

According to Practically Edible: Language Notes about Monkey Bread- Even though Monkey Bread is quite recent, no one really has any idea where the name "Monkey" came from. Guesses revolve around pulling things apart, like monkey's might, or that the cinnamon and brown sugar versions have a faint resemblance to "monkey pod," a decorative wood used in Hawaii.

(Copyright 2010 Practically Edible. All rights reserved and enforced.)

Well you see, nobody knows where the name came from, so let's forget about the monkey and concentrate on the bread shall we?
*

the baking process is a bit bit tedious. it involves quite a fair bit of kneading and rolling, dipping each individual dough into melted butter then cinnamon and brown sugar mixture.

letting the dough rise twice, once before we seperate the dough into little balls and once after we butter-sugar-coat each balls.

but trust me, it's worth the wait

the butter and cinnamon and sugar worked magic in the oven

and frankly, when u put these 3 things together, nothing can go wrong.