Kugelflop -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Welcome to my 21st TWD post! Wow! It seems like I just started this blog in the hopes of baking along with everyone every week and I am happy to be able to say I haven't missed a week yet :) The recipe of the week is Kugelhopf, chosen by Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl , thanks for a fun pick, Yolanda!

Would you believe me if I told you I bought a silicone kugelhopf pan a month or so ago, planning to make a Christmas kugelhopf and wanting to be ready when this recipe was selected for TWD? It's true! Trying to make this kugelhopf ended up being the second and third time I've used this pan, the first being a lovely Cranberry Cardamom Cake I made last month.

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On to the baking...okay, I'm sure I won't be the only one calling this a kugelflop this week. What went wrong? I don't know! I made this twice, the first time I accidentally added the butter at the beginning in one big schlop. I went ahead with the recipe, the kugelhopf rose well, I thought we were going to be okay. After about 1.5 hours on the last rising I put it in the oven, I left about an inch, maybe two, before the top of the pan because I assumed it would rise a lot. Dorie let me believe it would rise a lot. It didn't. Hmmm.

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Here are some photos from attempt #1

(yeah, that's my pink dyson hiding in the background)

In this recipe there was no "let cool on wire rack" direction just "unmold and let cool" ... I think that had a lot to do with why mine crumbled and cracked too much. You know, I thought to myself, this should probably cool in the pan on a rack, but since the recipe didn't say to I just followed the directions. I've made that mistake before with a bundt cake, you were supposed to unmold it right when you took it out of the oven, and let it cool unmolded on the rack, well, for whatever reason I let it cool in the pan, which resulted it a stuck to the sides mess. I didn't want that to happen with the kugelhopf so I decided to play it safe and unmold it right away. Too bad it crumbled.

I let my second attempt at this kugelhopf cool in pan on a wire rack before unmolding and had no problem. It looked pretty, of course not as gorgeously high and I had pictured, and tasted just as I'd expected (think "less moist panettone") a perfect not too sweet treat to have with tea for breakfast. The kids especially loved it :) I'm just baffled about why it did not rise in the oven after rising so well out of the oven. I've worked with yeast a lot and have never had that happen, I've dealt with bad yeast, not rising in the oven, etc. but never rising well out of the oven but not while baking. Oh-well. I have another kugelhopf recipe bookmarked and plan to try it before the holidays and hopefully I can get that tall beautiful shape I expected.

Kugelhopf #2

Forgot to add that on my second try I did not do the foil because I thought that maybe me opening the oven on the first kugelhopf to remove the foil made it fall or not rise or something...there is my reasoning, although it didn't seem to make a difference at all. For them both I skipped the butter soak, I was planning to do it with my big beautiful kugelhopf but it seems like it would have been a waste (of calories and butter) to bother with it on these poor little guys.

Even though I'm not happy with the 'not rising in the oven' and can't figure it out, this was a fun TWD week and a fun challenge. I'm really ready to try another kugelhopf recipe and see if I can figure out what has been happening, I want this to work!!