{TWD} Kugelhopf

The first thing I did when I joined TWD was to go online and order a dough hook for my Kitchenaid Artisan mixer. I'm pretty sure my mixer came with a dough hook, but I can't say for sure, because I've never seen it since. Up to now dough hooks have been irrelevant to my life. In the (rare) event that yeast gets used around here, it's by my husband. He enjoys trying to figure out how to best keep the yeasties happy so that they will do their thing. As you'd expect from an aging Boomer (shh, don't tell him I said that), naturally his baking bible is the Tassajara Bread Book. We even had two copies of it floating around at one point. His love of baking with yeast is more theoretical than applied, however, and we routinely throw out expired envelopes of yeast.

With me it's a different story. Truth be told, I'm a little scared of yeast (well, terrified actually). It 's the War and Peace of my baking world, a daunting prospect of epic proportions. But with TWD, it was only a matter of time before I would come face to face with yeast. At least I'd be armed with a decent dough hook.

I managed to make it through 16 TWD challenges before having to deal with the dreaded yeast. Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl chose Kugelhopf for this week's recipe, and I must admit it sounded appealing: part bread, part cake. Two of my favorite food categories!

While I was sorely tempted to purchase a specialty kugelhopf mold, I have "issues" with storage of specialty pans. I already have a whole bunch of tube pans and bundt pans, as well as three antique molds (the one in the front, left, in the above picture was my grandmother's angel food cake pan.) I wanted to use a tall pan, and one of the old tin pudding molds was exactly a 2 quart capacity. My dad had picked it up at an auction or antique shop years ago.

cook's notes:

- I asked my husband which dried fruit he preferred in this, and he chose raisins. Apparently he doesn't share my obsession with dried sour cherries. I used golden raisins and currants, which I plumped in diluted orange juice.

- It was after 10:00pm on Sunday before I could start the recipe.

- I followed Dorie's recipe very closely (with 3 minuscule additions) - the only real departure was that I used SAF instant yeast, red label, instead of active dry yeast. I debated this extensively with myself ("Should I really take an uncharted trail on my first yeast expedition?") But fortified by the assurance that the King Arthur Flour kitchen uses nothing other than SAF red, I took the leap. The next question was how much SAF to use. I read somewhere that starting with less yeast can lead to better taste than starting with too much. Some sources said to use a 1-fo-1 substitution, others said to reduce the amount by 25% when using instant. So I split the difference and used 1 level tsp. {edit: the best thing about instant yeast is that you don't have to dissolve it - just mix in with the dry ingredients!}

- I added a tiny pinch of cardamom with the dry ingredients. If I'd been thinking, I'd have instead infused the warm milk with a cardamom seed, but I didn't think about that in time.

- It was a little tricky to incorporate the ingredients with the dough hook. I'd read somewhere about using the paddle to mix the ingredients, switching to the hook when it was time for the beating. I might try that the next time.

- The dough began pulling away after about 5 minutes of beating. I stopped at about 7 or 8 minutes, and it had climbed almost all the way up the hook. I think I easily could have stopped sooner. Another concern is whether I beat at too high of a mixer speed. I used one speed for a few minutes and a higher speed for a few more.

- As I turned the very stretchy dough into a bowl to rise, it measured right at 2 cups. Other TWD bakers spoke of a runny dough, but that was not my experience. I used 4.75oz/cup for my flour measurement, so I don't know if that made any difference.

- I put the dough on my range top to rise. The halogen lights of the vent hood keep this a very toasty spot.


- It doubled in 70 minutes.

- I slapped it down every 30 minutes for 2 hours as it cooled in the fridge. By this point it was nearly 2:00am. Then it got 8 hours to chill.


- After putting it in the tin mold, it took 1 hour before the dough started to rise for the second time, then another hour until it was almost to the top of the mold.


- Is there any smell more intoxicating than yeast bread as it bakes?

- The bread did not rise a bit in the oven. Not even a milimeter. I wish I'd evened the top, because it was lopsided when it came out of the oven, just like it was when it went in.

- Luckily it came out of the mold mostly intact.


- The recipe calls for a melted-butter-and-sugar crust on the finished product. I wondered which esoteric sweetener would be on the ingredient list, to find: "sugar". I dug around the sugar stash and chose golden baker's sugar for the dusting. (Ultimately I forgot the later dusting with confectioner's sugar. Again) I mixed 1/4 tsp of orange peel granules with the butter before I melted it.

- The kugelhopf turned out to be undercooked a bit, maybe by a minute; it was moist and soft but tore when I cut it, despite my best efforts with two different serrated knives. I cut a slice off the bottom in an effort to even it out, but it was still crooked. And very plain, compared with those fancy kugelhopf molds. We'll just call it "rustic," OK?

The verdict

This is wonderful bread. Or cake. Bread/cake. The lightly sweet, delicate flavor matched the tender texture. I couldn't taste the cardamom or the orange notes per se, but I think they added. Very subtly! The yeast was very present in smell and taste. In a good, home-baked way.

After a few hours, it was easier to cut and tasted even better! My husband really really LOVED this bread/cake. (According to him, this rates a 10 out of 10, and at the very top for everything I've ever cooked) He doesn't want to share any of it! Kugelhopf is his very favorite Dorie recipe now. (Mine is still the Dimply Plum Cake!)

But even so, I'm not sure I'd make it frequently. It takes a TON of time and care. And now that I've got SAF in my arsenal, I'm ready to do battle with other yeast recipes!

Kudos to Yolanda for such a challenging/rewarding choice this week. The kugelhopf recipe can be found on pages 61-63 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours, or in Yolanda's post. There are now 360 TWD bakers! You can see the variety of baked kuglehopfs if you visit the Tuesdays With Dorie blogroll!