Gugelhupf - Austria

Gugelhupf is a very traditional Austrian cake. There is no english word for it, but I guess it is a kind of Bundt cake. Kind of...

The name might derive from the German word 'Kugel'(ball) and 'hupfen' or 'hüpfen' (jump).
The special thing about it is the form it is baked in. You can see it in the picture. It is deep and round, with a concave bank in the middle and creasings on the side. The Romans used those kind of baking forms 2000 years ago (they were excavated in Carnuntum, a former Roman military camp outside of Vienna) and it is assumed that the form represented the rotating sun.

After that the cake form as well as recipes for it were lost, but reemerged in the 15th century in central Europe. It became a favorite cake for the poor and farmers, presumably as the ingredients were easy to get for farm people.

But the real height of the Gugelhupf happened under the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I (1830-1916), as it used to be his favorite breakfast dish. There is the rumor going on that in his summer residence in Bad Ischl, he used to stay overnight at the house of his mistress, Katharina Schratt and in the morning she would serve him a Gugelhupf, after which he would sneak back.

True or not, this made the Gugelhupf popular for the bourgeoisie. Even back then it was served for breakfast as well as for coffee time in the afternoon.

A historian cake like that has many different recipes and there are two major distinctions: with yeast or without. Here I did a very basic version without yeast, but I'm sure I will include some other version later, as it is truly a delicious cake!

A note on the raisins: I know that some people don't like them, and if you really don't want them then don't use them! After all, baking should be fun and not a strict recipe-following affair. Everyone should experiment and try out things! You could add some almond slivers instead, if you feel like it!

Ingredients:

• 10 oz. (300g) soft butter
• 5 oz. (150g) powdered sugar
• 5 oz. (150g) sugar
• 3 whole eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 egg whites
• 8 oz. (240g) flour
• 2 oz. (60g) raisins
• vanilla sugar
• lemon zest
• butter for greasing
• flour for the form
• powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven at 350°F (180°C).
Grease the baking form with butter and dust with some flour. Knock out any extra flour.
Beat the butter together with the powdered sugar and slowly add the whole eggs, one at a time. Beat in the egg yolks, vanilla sugar, some lemon zest and the raisins. Whisk the egg whites together with the sugar until soft peaks form and fold it carefully into the egg-butter-mixture.
Then fold in the flour and pour into the prepared form. Bake in the oven for about an hour.
Test with a wooden skewer, if it comes back out clean, then the cake is ready.
Take it out and let it cool a little bit, then turn over and pray that the cake comes out smoothly. (As you can see, mine did not really want like I did, but that does not matter. You can put back together any stray parts).


Let it cool completely and dust with some powdered sugar before serving!

Note: for a half dark, half white cake, which I did, take out 1/3 of the batter and mix it with 1 oz. of cacao (the real one). Then fill in half of the regular batter, then the dark one and at last the remaining batter.