What better way to celebrate the halfway point than to create what is perhaps the most important cake on this journey; the Austrian gugelhupf!!! and what a cake it is too!
Seeing as Austria held the party which inspired this mission, it makes it a rather important cake so the pressure was on to get this one just right!
It took two goes to make this delicious panettone-like cake perfect which is not too bad considering the disasters with the baklava and the tompouzen! I think that the error was more to do with my fairly poor oven than the recipe which I dare say is really lovely.
There are many, many types of gugelhupf out there and finding out what was the most authentic Austrian version of the cake proved rather difficult. Much like the situation with baklava, the gugelhupf is a disputed cake with several countries claiming it as their own!
In trying to find the perfect recipe I came across all sorts of gugelhupf; plain, strawberry, chocolate, fruit, but luckily my very kind German classmate was able to help me find an authentic Austrian version of the cake from here http://gugelhupf.twoday.net/stories/2608594/ and translated the recipe for me. He also found out some interesting legends about the cake from the German Wikipedia site. For instance, the story goes that the three wise men, on their way back from Bethlehem visited Alsace. They were warmly greeted and the local people decided to fashion a cake on their turbans and so the gugelhupf was born! Another goes that Austrian born Marie Antoinette introduced the cake to France. And in the early 19th Century ("Biedermeier"-time (1815-1848)), the gugelhupf was a cake of the Bourgeoisie and a status-symbol!
This traditional recipe is a light and springy bread-like cake made with dried fruit and lemon. Of course there are many variations that could be made with this such as green tea, chocolate, coffee, pistachio, or could even be made in to a light Christmas cake with the right spices and some more fruit…
Whilst I reckon this recipe could be made in most cake tins, the traditional gugelhupf tin is really splendid and can be used to enhance a madeira sponge cake or could even be used to make a variation on the cake such as a bundt cake (USA), a Reindling from Kärnten (Austria), Baba au rhum (Poland and France), or Savarin (France).
Gugelhupf works as a fantastic tea cake and goes brilliantly with a cup of coffee or a semisweet wine such as a Riesling or a Gewürztraminer – delicious!
Happy baking to all of you and a big thank you to German friend!!
Here’s how I made it:
- 400gm plain white flour
- 50gm plain white flour for the final steps
- Pinch salt
- 250ml milk (warmed)
- 80gm white sugar
- 40gm unsalted butter melted
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 whole egg
- Juice of one lemon
- 20gm yeast or three sachets
- 100gm raisins
- Some icing sugar for decoration
- In a large mixing bowl mix yeast with one spoon of sugar.
- Add four spoons of flour and lukewarm milk.
- Cover with a towel and wait for the yeast to activate and for the mixture to rise slightly.
- After this sift in the remaining flour and add the salt, milk, sugar, lemon juice, melted butter, egg yolk and egg.
- Mix it!
- Sift in the remaining flour and mix it well. It should look like a very even consistency.
- Stir in the raisins.
- Butter and flour the gugelhupf tin.
- Spoon in the mixture into the gugelhupf and cover with a towel.
- Leave in a warm place until it has risen in the tin, at least doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- Bake for about 1 hour.
- Remove from tin and sprinkle with icing sugar.
- Enjoy!
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