I
finished my assignments for school a few days early so I had my weekend free to
bake what I wanted to bake. I’ve wanted to make a Gugelhupf for quite some
time and, having recently purchased a Gugelhupf pan, I thought I would go ahead
and give it a whirl.
Although
various regions claim it, Gugelhupf is an Austrian-German-Alsatian cake that
was a favorite of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary. I am sure that
my cousin, Mark Bieberbach, who was employed as a pastry chef in the Imperial
Household, made Gugelhupf for the Emperor on occasion. If he did,
he would have made a soft yeast dough – that is mixed for 10 minutes – and then
baked in “a high, creased, toroidal pan”. In other words, a fancy
Bundt pan. (Actually, fancy Bundt pans were developed in the United
States based on the Gugelhupf pan!)
The
word “Gugelhupf” (google-hoopf) like the recipe, dates back to the High Middle
Ages. “Gugel” is a Middle High German word for a cowl or hood that was
popular apparel in Medieval Germany. “Hupf” means “to hop” or “to
jump”. (A “jumping hood”??). There are probably as many different
ways of spelling Gugelhupf as there are recipes for it: Kugelhupf,
Guglhupf, Kougelhopf, Kouglof, and so on.
The
earliest known recipe for Gugelhupf dates back to a cookbook published in
1581. The recipe I used dates back to a cookbook published in 2016
(“Classic German Baking” by Luisa Weiss). The “modern” yet traditional
recipe had the obligatory traditional flavors of lemon and rum soaked
raisins. I could have added almonds and kept it traditional, but I opted
not to. According to Luisa Weiss, most bakeries and home cooks in Germany
and Austria today no longer make the traditional Gugelhupf, opting now for
using the Gugelhupf pan to make a form of pound cake. Her recipe
(and the one I used) is the more traditional way. (She also has a recipe
for a less traditional Chocolat-Gugelhupf that I would like to try).
I
don’t know why you wouldn’t want to make the traditional Gugelhupf. It’s
really not difficult at all. It’s the special “toroidal pan” and a
dusting of confectioners’ sugar that makes it look fancy and complicated.
(Nobody needs to know this, by the way). The steps are straight forward:
weigh the ingredients (always, always, always weigh when you’re baking);
put the dry ingredients in a mixer bowl and combine the wet ingredients in a
separate bowl. Then, pour the wet into the dry and mix for 10 minutes.
When done, pour it into a prepared Gugelhupf pan (or any Bundt pan you happen
to have) and let it proof while the oven heats up. Once the oven is
heated, put the pan in the oven and bake. When it’s done baking remove it
from the oven and, after letting it cool for 10 minutes, turn it out onto a
rack and let it finish cooling. That’s pretty much all there is to it!
The
Gugelhupf is very similar in texture to an Italian Panettone. Like the
Italian version, Gugelhupf is excellent in the morning with coffee or quite
frankly with coffee at anytime during the day.
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| Gugelhupf |
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