TWD: Kugelhopf

Just like the rugelach I baked last week, I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce kugelhopf. Also, even though Dorie mentioned that kugelhopf is part bread, part cake, but she refers to it as 'cake' in the recipe. Well, it certainly looks and tastes like bread to me though. ;-)

With half a loaf of bread still left in the kitchen, I was not sure if I should try my hands at kugelhopf. It wasn't until last night that I decided to give it a go. So after dinner, I prepared the dough and let it rest in the fridge overnight. This morning, I took the dough out, shaped it into a ring so that it could fit into the bundt pan and then let it proof in the garden because it's warmer out there.

The dough had risen nicely and when it's almost reaching the top of the pan, about 2.5 hours later, I put it in the oven. The dough continued to rise slightly for the first 10 minutes in the oven, and then I did as instructed in the recipe - opened the oven door and covered the pan with a piece of foil. After another 20 minutes, I reckoned the bread should be done by then. I proceeded to take the pan out and flipped open the foil. To my dismay, the bread has deflated to half of the height of the pan! Urgh!

I seriously do not know what went wrong, maybe it's due to the fact that I open the oven door halfway?

Fortunately, my kugelhopf still tastes great, it's soft and fluffy, and I like the aromatic crust. Brushing 1 stick of melted butter on the bread did seem like overkill to me initially, but when I took the first bite, I can understand why it is necessary to do so. The bread itself is kind of tasteless, but the addition of melted butter (and also sprinkling of sugar) gives more flavor to the bread. Again, I went overboard by having 3 slices of the bread right after lunch!

Thanks to Yolanda of The All Purpose Girl for picking kugelhopf for all to bake this week. If you want to try out the recipe, head over to her blog!