Gugelhupf, a traditional German yeasted cake that is round, high-domed, dense, buttery, and speckled with rum or apple juice soaked raisins, is a favorite of my hero, Franz. However, I don’t think he’d turn down any variation including cocoa, almond, marbled, or lemon.
Ingredients
- 2 T fresh yeast
- 1 ¾ T sugar
- 1 cup milk, lukewarm
- ¾ cup butter, soft
- ⅔ cup sugar
- 3 eggs, medium
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup raisins
- 1 tablespoon apple juice or rum
- 3 ½ grams slivered almonds
- powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
1. Pour the juice or rum over the raisins. Crumble the yeast with the sugar into the lukewarm milk and stir until it dissolves. Let stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, grease the pan(s) and sprinkle the bottom with the flaked almonds. The dough is enough for a large pan at least 9.5 in diameter or two small ones.
2. Beat the softened butter with the remaining sugar until fluffy, add the eggs one by one and mix well. Add the flour with the yeast water to the mixture. Mix everything together to form a smooth dough.
3. Dust the raisins with a bit of flour and gently fold them into the dough. Put the dough into the prepared pan(s) and let it rise in a warm place for 1-1.5 hours until it has about doubled volume.
4. Preheat oven to 360°F/180°C. Bake Gugelhupf for about 45 minutes; cover towards the end if necessary. Tiny pans only need about 35-40 minutes. Let cool and dust with plenty of powdered sugar.
Don’t have a Gugelhupf pan?
Use a bundt pan. The Gugelhupf pan is 8.5 inches, so a bit smaller than your bundt pan. It just means that the cake won’t be quite as tall. For that reason it will probably also likely take a little less baking time.