We are almost at the end of baking from World Class Cakes by Roger Pizey. This month I chose the Chocolate Kugelhopf from our choices, but changed it to Apricot Kugelhopf since I'm not a fan of chocolate and yeast bread. I used 1 cup of moist dried apricots, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup of water to make the filling, simmering until the liquid was syrupy. Then I put the fruit and liquid from the pot into a food processor, added 1 tablespoon lemon juice to cut the sweetness a bit, and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract since I was putting almonds on the top of the cake. It smelled heavenly! It also made a pretty pattern in the cake.
The cake dough was another story. I liked the idea of the three bowls, but questioned the published "1 cups flour". I've made similar yeast doughs and with all the egg and egg yolk, plus the milk in the yeast mixture, there is no way that 1 cup is enough to form a dough. I started adding extra bread flour 1/4 cup at a time and lost count of how much extra, but I think the amount was closer to 3 cups than 1 cup. The dough was tacky but not sticky and rose well...too well as a matter of fact! I didn't have fresh yeast, so I used a full packet of dry yeast...that may have been too much. Since the cake dough rose so much, the top of the cake was mostly dough.
I had to cut off the top of the cake (which became the bottom) because it rose unevenly in the oven...great oven spring, but lopsided. As you can see in the photo above, the crumb is lovely and moist. The flavor with the rich dough and tangy apricot filling is delicious, too. It makes a pretty cake with the apricot jam glaze and almond decorations on top.
I'm not going to give a recipe for this because there were too many flaws with the recipe as given and I don't have time to type up all the corrections. If you have a favorite brioche dough, that will work well here. I used a small Bundt pan and the apricot filling described at the top. Happy Baking!
Check out the other Cake Slice Bakers October cakes!
Looks good, Elle! Good idea with apricot compote.
ReplyDeleteMine was lopsided as heck, too, but does taste good. I love the apricot idea.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty and using apricots is also good for this time of year. Hopefully, I can get over my yeast phobia and make this.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you had so many problems with the recipe. That has happened to me as well and it is so frustrating!
ReplyDeleteI love that you used apricot as your flavoring. It really does seem that this recipe was not tested before it made its way into the book, as many bakers had similar issues.
ReplyDeleteYour kugelhopf looks wonderful! I like your apricot filling. Glad that your bread turns out better than ours!
ReplyDeleteWow. Strange about the 1 cup thing. Love the apricot filling. Stranger that I've been craving some kind of coffee/morning cake like this.
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