Making the Gugelhupf… or is it kouglof?
Gugel…what now?
In our video on “The Breads of France” we make a “Gugelhupf”. Yes, we made a German cake/bread in a French video. Go watch the video to see how that actually makes quite a bit of sense, not only because looking at the history of European culinary tradition cannot be done in isolation as all countries of Europe have always had strong cultural influences on each other (yes even you Britain).
Below is a recipe for Gugelhupf: a baked good that sits between bread and cake. Historically, we see it as a precursor to brioche, although this version (one of the few 18th century ones containing sugar) is extremely lean on the sugar compared to a modern brioche recipe. In the aforementioned video we proceed to explain how to make the bread (you can call it a cake but we’re just going to call it bread for the rest of this recipe) using beer barm or beer yeast starter. However, there are two other methods of making this 18th century delicacy. One with modern fresh yeast (also works with instant or active dry but we prefer fresh) and with “thick beer" (beery sourdough starter).
The fresh yeast method
For this method, we’re adapting the recipe from the article by Dr Margarete Meggle-Freund. We’ve removed the use of a stand mixer and made a couple of minor changes, but most of the credit goes to her.
For Gugelhupf in a 24cm diameter turban cake mould, we’re going to need:
70 ml of thick cream (we went with double but whipping cream should work), it should still be liquid
30 grams of fresh yeast, 14 grams of active dry yeast or 7 grams of instant yeast
35 grams of raw cane sugar
70 grams of lard (you can increase this and then deduct that amount from the butter)
70 grams of butter (you can increase this and then deduct that amount from the lard)
2 whole eggs
3 egg yolks in addition to the above eggs
90 ml of light beer (try something light and low alcoholic like a wheat beer or a table beer)
550 of flour, we opted for simple plain wheat flour. Dr Meggle-Freund used white spelt but our recipe was for a queen so we used white wheat (go watch the video, it will make sense)
a dash of rosewater (optional)
Instructions
As with practically all historical bread recipes, this starts with a pre-ferment:
Crumble your yeast into the cream (or stir if you’re not using fresh).
Add in the cane sugar.
Add in enough flour to turn the cream into a batter, a heaped tablespoon or two should do the trick.
Cover and put this away.
Now comes the very messy bit:
Take your fats (butter and lard) and start beating them until soft. If doing this by hand with a wooden spoon, you will work up a sweat.
Once soft, add the all the eggs while stirring. Do this little by little! This has to become an emulsion and should in the end have the consistency of mayonnaise. Like mayonnaise, if you go too fast you’ll get a liquid. Add some egg and beat it into the fat. Only once this portion has been absorbed into the emulsion should you add the next dollop of egg.
Once you’ve added the eggs, add in your beer. Again, little by little is the way to go. We do not want this to split. A little bit of curdling will occur each time but you can stir it smooth in between every bit of beer you add.
When all the beer is added in, add in your dash of rosewater (if you’re using it) and stir that in just as you did the beer. You should now have a mayonnaise like mixture. If, at any point this liquified… I’m afraid you’ll have to re-do this process from scratch.
Putting it all together:
Add your pre-ferment to your fats. Again, slow and steady does it.
Once incorporated, start adding the remaining flour spoon by spoon.
Now that everything is combined, start kneading. If it’s too wet and runny to knead, add small handfuls of flour until it becomes manageable.
Knead for about 10 minutes and then cover and leave it to rise in a nice warm place (we use our oven with the light on) for about 90 minutes.
While you wait, grease up your mould, ideally with butter.
Once your dough is nice and poofy, tear a hole in the middle and drop it into the mould. Now, cover it up again and put it in the oven and let it rest again, until it has doubled in size.
Time to bake
Once your dough has doubled in size, take it out of the oven, bring the oven up to 150°C, pop it back in (sans the covering) and leave it to bake for about 45 minutes to an hour.
When freshly baked, the Gugelhupf will shrink a little - that’s normal, your bread is not collapsing. Leave it to cool in the mould for about 5 minutes, and it should slide right out after that.
The thick beer method
Take the same ingredients but replace the 90 ml of light beer and the fresh yeast with about 180 grams of thick beer. You get thick beer by taking sourdough starter and refreshing it three or four times with beer instead of water. Again, you want to opt for a low alcoholic, gentle beer. All other ingredients are the same, although you might need some extra beer later.
The pre-ferment:
Add the cane sugar and thick beer to the cream.
Depending on the flour used in your starter this could now already have the desired consistency. If not, add some of the flour until you get a thick, batter-like consistency.
Put the pre-ferment away for about 2 hours, ideally somewhere warm.
The Messy Bit:
This part is exactly the same apart from the addition of the beer. That makes this step a bit easier as there is no risk of shifting the fat mixture when adding in the beer.
Putting it all together:
The beginning here is roughly the same, but you might need to add some beer once everything is combined if it looks too dry. However, the fermentation periods are vastly longer. Once everything is kneaded, leave it to rise for three to four hours. Then, give it quick knead and put it into your mould which has been greased just like in the other method. Now wait another three to four hours, then bake just like in the previous method.