Kuglóf

Kuglóf must be one of the easiest cakes to make. It's a very popular coffee and tea time cake you can find in most European countries (Gugelhupf, Bundkuchen). It's made with a soft, sweet yeasty dough and can be filled with dried or candied fruit, nuts, marzipan, chocolate or cocoa (marble cake) and in Hungary often layered with poppy seed. My Mum gave me her lovely old blue enamel kuglóf baking mould a few years ago but it's chipped in a few places going rusty, so I need to get it fixed before I can use it. For this recipe I tried my new silicone mould, which is not as tall as the enamel one. The recipe is from one of my old cookbooks Venesz József: Magyaros konyha.

I added some sultanas to the dough as that's the only filling we used to have when we made it at home and it looks great when you slice it.

280g flour

15g fresh yeast

400 ml milk

3 egg yolks

60g butter

80g icing sugar

grated lemon zest

pinch of salt

30g sultanas

Crumble and mix the yeast with 80g of the flour  and 150ml warm milk. Cover and leave this starter dough to prove in a warm place for 30 minutes. 

Cream the icing sugar with the butter and egg yolks until smooth and fluffy. Add the starter dough, rest of the flour, lemon zest, sultanas, salt and the rest of the warmed up milk. Mix it well, until it is light and air bubbles start to form in the dough when you mix it. It will be a slightly runny, soft, sweet dough. Cover and leave to prove in a warm place for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and dust a ring shape tin/kuglóf tin with semolina/fine breadcrumbs or use a silicone mould (you don't need to grease this). Fill the mould with the dough, cover and let it prove for another 30 minutes. Bake until cooked through and golden colour, this takes 35-40 minutes. When ready, turn it out of the mould and cool on a wire rack, dust with icing sugar.