We're Bananas for Peels' Monkey Bread
Rebecca Marx
It had been a while since we'd been into Peels, but yesterday, remembering the bliss we'd found in Shuna Fish Lydon's St. Louis Sticky Gooey Cake, we decided to remedy the situation.
A thick slice of monkey bread was exactly the fix we needed. We're partial to any dessert with "monkey" in its name, in part because it makes us think of bananas, and in part because it makes us think of the insanely good monkey cake at Amy's Bread.
Lydon's monkey bread doesn't contain bananas and isn't remotely cake-like, but it does use the same brioche dough that so endeared us to her St. Louis cake. Here it's webbed with cinnamon and slathered with sweetened mascarpone cheese, and the end result is pretty wonderful.
The brioche is airy but has some bite to it, and its bottom crust, which has caramelized during baking, is chewy, sweet, and toasty. Most of the bread's sweetness comes courtesy of the mascarpone icing, and in a way the concoction less resembles bread than a Danish. It reminded us a bit of the Entenmann's breakfast pastries of our childhood, except that it was about 2,000 times better. A slice will set you back a reasonable $3.50, and make your day noticeably better.
Peels
325 Bowery
646-602-7015
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