Cooking & Baking Challenge - Session 5 : Kugelhupf

This month my husband and I tested a Kugelhupf recipe, from a German book on French cooking ;) Logical, isn't it?

Ingredients:

1 dice of fresh yeast (42gr)
1/8 L lukewarm milk
150 gr sugar

500 gr flour
1/2 a lemon
125 gr soft butter + 2 tbsp additional for the mould
4 eggs (medium size)
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
1 big pinch of freshly grated nutmeg / salt
4 tbsp almonds (flakes)
350-400 gr seedless grapes [ I used raisins soaked in water - my afterthought was that it would have tasted even better soaked in rum!]
Icing sugar

1 - Crumble the yeast and mix it in a small bowl with 5-6 tbsp milk and 1 tsp of sugar. In another recipient, mix the remaining sugar with the flour and make a hole in the middle. There, pour the yeast and milk mixture and cover with a little bit of flour. Cover the bowl and leave it to rest for 15 min. 

2 - Wash well your lemon and grate finely half of it. Add the zest, the butter, the eggs, the vanilla, nutmeg and salt to the flour and with the dough hook mix for about 5 min. Cover again and leave to rest 1 to 2 hours until the dough has doubled in volume.

3 - Butter your form (if it's a metal form), sprinkle with the almonds everywhere. Wash and drain your grapes. Add them to the dough. Then place your dough in your form and leave it to rest another 15  min.
Pre-heat the oven at 180°C (or 160°C if you start from a cold oven with air circulation)

4 - Place the cake in the oven (in the middle) and leave it to bake for about an hour, until it looks nicely brown.
Leave the cake to cool down a bit before taking it out of its mould. Before serving, sprinke some icing sugar.

Enjoy!