Sometimes when you have been baking for a very long time with a contraption that is probably older than you, you learn to read it inside out. I have a feeling that my oven was around when I was a little girl. That was a very long time ago. We inherited it with the house when we bought it. It is not much to look at. It doesn’t have a working light, which means I am baking blind most of the time. It creaks, groans and thuds every now and then as it tries to heat and then cool down. But I love it. I have learned to read the sounds it makes and to gingerly pat the outside and gauge the heat. I listen to it and it never lets me down. I haven’t burned anything in a long long time and I intend to keep it that way.
On most days, I am a reckless baker. Maybe it is the feeling of rebellion of not following a recipe the way it is meant to be. A walk on the wild side of the oven. A high. A thrill. The anxiety and anticipation of not knowing what you might have done. The sweet reward when the recipe turns out fine. Yes, I am most definitely a reckless baker. Lazy, even.
On a recent exploration of one of my favourite cookbooks
Monday Morning Cooking Club, a kugelhopf recipe called out to me. When the author proclaims that she has been baking it for 20 odd years, I want to bake it too. I scrapped a recipe for a coffee teacake that I had been fixating on all morning and decided to bake the kugelhopf with a hearty dash of coffee. The recipe was straightforward but being the way I am, reckless! – I skipped the egg separating and whisking. The cake was stunning to look at, it demystified the perfect separation of browns and whites in the batter for me. I realised that the dense chocolate mixture is actually added after the white batter and sinks to the bottom of the pan. So when you turn it out and around, the brown is at the top and white at the bottom. Voila!
Photography, Styling & Prop Alert – Acacia wood log cut cake plate – $69.99 at
Wheel & Barrow. Wood handle knife – $2 at Thrift Store. The distressed black wooden tabletop is a 20 hour labour of love.
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COFFEE KUGELHOPF
A beautiful chocolate and coffee splashed kugelhopf adapted from the Monday Morning Cooking Club cookbook. A gorgeous buttery cake for high-tea.
Preparation Time – 15 minutes
Cooking Time – 55 minutes
Serves – 12
Ingredients
125g salted butter
200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons instant coffee
6 medium eggs
2 cups caster sugar
2 cups self raising flour
300g sour cream
Method
Preheat the oven to 220C. Grease a 26cm Kugelhopf tin or Bundt tin.
Melt butter and dark chocolate in a heavy bottomed saucepan on low heat. Stir constantly to avoid lumps, until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in the instant coffee.
Beat the eggs with the sugar until pale and creamy. Add the flour and sour cream. Beat for a few minutes until well mixed and smooth.
Pour two thirds of the combined mixture into the prepared tin. Add the chocolate mixture to the remaining batter and pour this over the top of the white batter.
Bake for 10 minutes at 220C, then reduce heat to 170C and bake for 45 minutes until golden and firm to touch.
Cool in tin before turning out onto a wire rack.
Notes
When baking in a bundt pan, just spray it with cooking oil to grease or brush the insides with melted butter using a pastry brush. Never dust the insides with flour.
Wait for the cake to cool almost completely before trying to shake it loose from the bundt pan. The best time to do this is when it is still a bit warm. I find loosening the inner and outer edges with a blunt butter knife and whacking the pan on all sides with your palm helps loosen the cake.
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A splendid kougelhopf! One of my favorite flavors.
cheers,
Rosa
Gorgeous cake!! And I like the fact that it’s pretty much straightforward 😉
My goodness, I don’t even like coffee that much but I want to make this tonight!
Beautiful photos, easy to follow recipe, what could be better…
Lovely post, Sneh. Your photos (and styling) just keep getting better and better!
Lovely cake Sneh , I want to make this today but don’t have sour cream at home. Can I substitute sour cream with anything ??
It looks delicious and if you say so, then it IS delicious! Definitely bookmarked. Have a wonderful day!
What a lovely post Sneh! It’s wonderful you and your oven are friends and have come to understand each other. I have a new oven and I’m yet to reach that point with it yet. Here’s hoping we become firm friends like you are 😀
Gorgeous! This sounds incredible. Perfect, even!
And the photos – I am so envious of your little set-up with natural light. And the distressed table top has won my heart… I would love to create something like that, but don’t even know where to begin. Really beautiful. 🙂
Beautiful kugelhopf, I love the coffee addition.
It looks gorgeous! My mother used to make that exact cake – without the coffee and lots of chocolate icing for all our birthdays growing up. Brings back good memories. And thank you for the tip of not flouring the pan, that might explain why my cake often sticks.
I love the mix around of colours 🙂 What a beautiful cake. Perfect styling
Alright!! I love pound cake and chocolate… and just bookmarked your page and plan on making this week end hopefully i will let you know how it goes 🙂
Such a beautiful cake! I really wish my cakes look this beautiful!
this is so beautiful and looks so delicious!
Nice work Sneh! Now you have me craving coffee cake!
You always bake the most beautiful things! Nothing too pretentious, just delicious, full of flavour and gorgeously shot. Another absolute winner 🙂
sneh, i am so with you on the reckless baking syndrome! it’s lovely when the rebellion sets in and something actually turns out delicious though, isn’t it? i have to make this, it looks so gorgeous!
Beautiful cake, beautiful recipe, beautiful table tops. Just a gorgeous post all around!
stunning !
Monday Morning Cooking Club is one of my favourite books too. Your kugelhopf looks deliciously moist! I have to make it!
I just made your kugelhopf this morning after I read about it on Baking Bites. It looks and smells just delicious but the thing is I can’t get them out of the pans (I used 2 smaller pans).
I greased the pans up but did not flour them as the recipe indicated. Why are they not floured? I think next time I will most definitely need to do that. And I’m sure there will be a next time because I’m sure when I can get one out of a pan I will look forward to sharing it.
I am going to make a nice little glaze flavored with nocino for the top.
Did you try taking them out when they were barely warm (not hot from the oven and not completely cooled)? That is the perfect time to remove them. Flouring them makes them stick to the sides and if you do get them out, it leaves unsightly patches of wet looking flour on the surface. But if you find flouring them easier to remove, by all means, do so. Thanks for leaving your feedback. I hope you enjoy them! The glaze sounds divine.
I tried to find that magical balance but I got the rough, interior crumb effect you’re describing after much banging and teasing and coaxing them out. Maybe they needed to be warmer than they were.
My pans were a small tin kugelhopf mold and a black metal springform pan (with a patterned bottom and a center column) rather than modern non-stick surfaces on heavy pans. Perhaps that’s the problem.
I was grateful for the springform pan that allowed me to get a knife in for much faster results. The rope-patterned bottom-cum-top was ruined but, happily, it looks very nice sitting with the crowned top on top.
I am giving all of the cake as gifts but I can say that the interior of the one I cut in half looks and smells delicious. The colors remain dramatically defined.
I added some cinnamon to the chocolate batter and a small amount of cardamom to the light batter. I will definitely try it again until I develop the knack of getting it out since the mixing is sooo easy and the results so promising in every other respect. ;>
Such a delicious looking cake!
Confused about the butter. Don’t I need to mix with the white part too? According to your post, the butter should be mixed only with the chocolate!!
Hi Sadia! You could mix butter in both the white and chocolate batter, but I baked it the way the recipe states. Butter only in the chocolate and the white batter moistened with sour cream. The difference in textures is great and the cake is very moist and even.
Hi Sneh. I baked the coffee kugelhopf 3 days ago and it was delicious. Loved the combinations of sour cream, chocolate and coffee in the cake. I shared the cake with neighbour and friends and they all loved it!