Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Kugelhopf TWD

You know how we are all aware of the baking and cooking rules which say that you are supposed to read the recipe all the way through and then you set out all the measured ingredients on the counter in order?
Am I the only one who only does that sometimes?

So I am thinking "what is a kugelhopf?"
I'll just whip it up after work on Monday since I am off early.
Ha ha ha.

Kugelhopf as the story goes came from Austria to France via Marie Antoinette. It is a raisin filled yeast bread or breakfast bread, excellent with butter and honey and makes wonderful toast. It is not difficult but it does require a lot of time for rising.

The ingredients were simple enough, flour, eggs, yeast, yadda, yadda, yadda. But keeping it from sticking to my hands? Impossible. My dough never got soft, it just stuck to the beaters and to my hands, or is that what soft means? I had also read somewhere that it is not a very sweet dough. As I licked some stickiness off my hands I realized that they weren't kidding.
Oops, I forgot to add the sugar.
Okay, sugar added after raisins, we shall see.
Also, where is the chocolate?
I love when dough has risen, it just seems fluffy and has that wonderful smell, and my yeast doughs don't always rise so it was great when this did. Some time spent rising and slapping down in the fridge and then let it rest overnight.
Yeah, I'm good with overnight.
I put it out for the final rise today and oooohhh, fluffy and poofy. Yay!
Off to the oven.

Now I'm thinking "Well this is a good learning experience, I mean, how good can it be with out chocolate?" It took 2 minutes to brush the melted butter (melted butter is always good) on the hot cake and 1 minute to sprinkle natural sugar (sugar is good) on it and 15 seconds to decide to cut a piece before I even photographed it. Wow, I really, really liked it. Now I have to let it cool before I add powdered sugar and take some photos. I would rather eat more and just photograph crumbs.

I think the only thing I might do different is add more stuff, you know, dried fruits and such.
Would I make this again?
Refer to the sentence below.

If anyone feels the need to buy my love, a nice standing mixer would do it. Yes I can be bought.

11 comments:

Peabody said...

Ha, ha...you'll make it Monday night. I can't believe how long it took to make!

Anonymous said...

Your Kugelhopf looks wonderful!

dharmagirl said...

what a lovely cake! and I love the bit of history. the stand mixer does help some, but this sure is a high maintenance dough, with all that rising and slapping and so on...

Steph said...

Wow Amber! You made that without a stand mixer.. good job!

Kimberly Johnson said...

Oh man ... I can't imagine life without my KA! Your kugelhopf looks great though!

Anonymous said...

Wow, gorgeous cake! Even if they do take FOREVER.

Nancy/n.o.e said...

Your kugelhopf is so pretty. And I'm glad to find someone else who loved this! Add me to the list of those impressed that you did this without a stand mixer. I was initially wondering about the dough sticking to your hands! I survived with a (harvest gold, thank you) hand held mixer for 25 years before I broke down and got a stand mixer.

... And your priorities are perfect: taste first, photograph whatever's left!

Nancy

Mim said...

Beautiful...
as they say in Australia about food.
And a KA stand mixer...
now that is impressive you made it without one!
Mim

test it comm said...

I miss ingredients as well. It looks like it turned out really good though!

Bungalow Barbara said...

I don't have a stand mixer either. It sure was a sticky dough, wasn't it? Nice and fluffy, but a lot of work.

Vera said...

Amber, your cake looks great! I baked it so many times, and I can't agree with you more - it's delicious (my little son's favorite cake :)