Kouglof, Kougelhopf or Gugelhupf is light, yeasted cake, very popular in quite many European countries like France, Germany, Austria…it’s like a traditional cake that people prepare for year-end holidays. I’ve been to Strasbourg, just right before the Christmas and easy to see this cake in every baking & pastry shop.
Step 1 Preparation for Kouglof dough
- All purpose flour 400 gr
- Salt 8 gr
- Sugar 40 gr
- Egg 240 gr
- Fresh yeast 36 gr
- Butter 240 gr
- Raisins 100 gr (dehydrated in rum syrup)
- Butter for the mold 40 gr
Knead all together, except the butter, it will be the last one to add to the dough. When I prepared this first kouglof, I didn’t have raisins at home so I just added 100 gr orange confit and some Cointreau – orange flavor. The dough is very wet, soft so don’t worry as we need to keep it in the fridge overnight.
The mold for Kouglof is quite unique, it said that any mold for Bundt cake is good for Kouglof, especially the ceramic one – but the latter is very expensive and heavy. I got two molds, one I found in Amsterdam, at Duikelman shop, and another one in Paris – at the famous Dehillerin. Hope I will bake my second Kouglof in another beautiful mold.
The next day, after one night in the fridge, it’s easy to handle the dough, I put it in the mold, just up to 2/3 of the mold, left it to rest for about 1 hour at 25oC. During my class at Le Cordon Bleu, I got a tip from Chef to cover the mold with a heavy tray on the top during baking, in order to have a flat bottom later, when the cake turns upside down.
Bake at 180oC for 15 minutes then at 150oC for the another 15 minutes. By the way, we need to butter the mold carefully. so the cake easy comes out after baking. Dust with some sugar powder and ready to serve with tea or coffee! It’s a good cake.
Le petit renard 