TWD - Kugelhopf

This week's Tuesday with Dorie is hosted by Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl, who has chosen something that I have wanted to make for a long time - a kugelhopf. A couple of years ago, I did a beginner German class, and while I didn't retain too much German, I have hankered after making kugelhopf ever since learning about it in class.

A kugelhopf is like a cross between a bread and a very plain cake, and is a yeasted baked item studded with raisins and traditionally baked in a turban-shaped pan. While kugelhopf is popular in Germany and Austria, with regional variations, it actually originates in Alsace. For more on the history of the kugelhopf and yet another recipe, refer to this New York Times article.

Instead of a kugelhopf pan, I used a bundt pan as my mould. I loved the silkiness of the kugelhopf dough. Here is my kugelhopf just before it went into the oven:

I just used raisins in my dough as suggested in the recipe, because I don't mind them and I have heaps of them about for Christmas baking projects. I didn't have time to allow my dough to rest in the fridge overnight, so I only needed 40 minutes rising time after placing the dough in the bundt pan before baking.

The two ends of my kugelhopf did not join together well, so I had a slit in my kugelhopf. However, the butter and sugar used to crust up the finished kugelhopf helped to seal the gap.

My kugelhopf doubled as an emergency birthday cake (despite it not being the most festive of cakes!), because unbeknown to me, it was my boss's birthday yesterday and I hadn't baked him anything special. I melted a chocolate bar that I had in my desk and made a piping bag out of ordinary paper to pipe my boss's name on the kugelhopf:

It certainly wasn't a very exciting birthday cake. I would have liked the kugelhopf to be sweeter, but as no-one else came forth with a cake, it was the best that could be managed in the circumstances. My boss's assistant seemed to think he wouldn't mind having a kugelhopf as a birthday cake.

Thanks to Yolanda for hosting TWD this week - you can find the kugelhopf recipe on her site or in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can check out all the other variations on the kugelhopf at the TWD blogroll here.