This shapely ring of bread is a Kugelhopf. As far as I can tell, both Austria and Germany claim that the Kugelhopf was invented there and hence the poor bread has various weird and wonderful spellings of its name and many stories attached to it. At any rate, a traditional Kugelhopf is an enriched bread (i.e. loaded with butter and sugar) which is studded with dried fruits. Traditionally, despite the butter enrichment, it is quite a dry bread and is eaten along with your cup of tea or coffee. I’d imagine that it would make a really luxurious bread pudding…

I was particularly attracted to this recipe, as it didn’t involve any kneading or indeed, much actual work. The recipe doesn’t make a traditional dough, but rather a very thick batter which is scraped into the tin after its first rising. The most energetic thing you need to do for this recipe is zest an orange…

Coating the tin with oil and semolina is a fantastic idea and the cooked bread did not stick at all. I’ll probably try out variants of this for other recipes cooked in this tin, as unless the tin is heavily buttered cakes can stick due to the heavy detailing.

Kugelhopf, from “The Bread Book”, by Sara Lewis

3 tablespoons Kirsch, rum or brandy
150g mixed dried fruit (I used a mix which contained raisins, sultanas, currants, glace cherries,
400g strong white bread flour
75g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
grated zest of one large orange
2 teaspoons fast-action (easy-blend/instant) dried yeast
75g unsalted butter, melted
3 medium eggs, beaten
150ml milk, warmed
semolina or dried breadcrumbs to coat tin

Warm the spirit in a small saucepan and then add the dried fruit and leave to soak for two hours.

Put the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange rind and dried yeast into a large bowl. Add the melted butter and beaten eggs then gradually beat in the warmed milk to form a thick batter.

Cover the bowl loosely with oiled clingfilm and leave in a warm place for an hour or until doubled in size.

Brush the inside of a 2.5L kugelhopf tin (or similar – I used a fancy bundt tin which is quite similar in appearance) with sunflower oil and then sprinkle with semolina or breadcrumbs. Beat the soaked fruit and spirit into the batter, and then pour this evenly into the prepared tin. Try to avoid knocking the semolina off the sides of the tin.

Cover the top of the tin loosely with oiled clingfilm and leave in a warm place to rise for 45 minutes or until the mixture almost reaches the top of the tin.

Remove the clingfilm and bake in a preheated oven, 190C / Gas Mark 5, for 35-40 minutes. Check after 20 minutes and cover with foil if you feel the bread is in danger of over-browning.

Leave the bread to stand in the tin for 5 minutes, then loosen the edges and centre with a knife and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.