Project Guglhupf
23 October 2005 Comments Off
A guglhupf is a southern German or Austrian term for a type of bundt cake, is among A.’s favorite desserts, and is one of the few German cakes that I like.
Because A. is so fond of guglhupf, his mother usually makes one when we visit and as a result, guglhupf was one of the first German desserts that I sampled. I remember that first taste left me slightly disappointed: The cake had no frosting, it wasn’t nearly as sweet as I thought it should be, and in all honesty, it was a little dry. However, after trying a plethora of other German cakes, I came to the conclusion that the guglhupf wasn’t too bad after all and since A. kept telling me that I could surely make a better guglhupf than MIL, I also became interested in someday making my own.
As a result of a lot of begging and pleading from A., last spring when we went to visit the in-laws I finally took the initiative and spent some time with MIL in the kitchen; specifically asking her about a guglhupf recipe. Since I am not as much of a “visual” person as a lot of women, usually I can get along just fine with merely reading instructions. However, since the recipe was from an ancient Austrian cook book I thought it might not hurt to actually see a guglhupf being made, so I asked MIL if she would show me how to make one. (Besides, I have learned that hanging out in the kitchen with MIL is always good for a few brownie points!)
And as usual, by observing MIL in the kitchen for a couple of hours I learned a lot about what she does wrong when she cooks. Don’t get me wrong: MIL isn’t that bad of a cook. The problem, as I have mentioned before, is that she was trained as a cafeteria cook and I believe it is literally impossible for her to cook anything without cooking in quantities that can only be described as able to comfortably feed a small army.
Such was the case with the guglhupf. The first thing MIL did was pull this pan out of the cupboard that, first of all wasn’t a proper bundt pan, and second of all looked big enough to make a wedding cake for 200 guests. According to MIL, this pan was large enough for 2 ½ guglhupf recipes and so she almost tripled the recipe! As we made the cake I took note of the things she changed from the original recipe and realized it was no wonder that her guglhupf was always a bit dry.
While we were making the cake, I was also surprised to see that I almost always have the ingredients to make a guglhupf on hand in my kitchen. All I needed was a (proper-sized) bundt pan. The day after we made the guglhupf, MIL took me shopping and bought me a bundt pan. (Even though she did try to buy me an enormous one until I finally convinced her that since A. and I are just two people I didn’t need such a large pan.)
Today, after approximately six months of sitting in the cupboard, I finally used the bundt pan. Yes, after months eating store-bought guglhupf A. finally convinced me to make my own. It turned out so well (except that I slightly burned the bottom – I always forget that my oven is just a little bit on the hot side) that A. and I passed on a nutritious dinner tonight and substituted caked instead! 
