Production
Alsatian Kugelhopf Formula in Baker's Percent: A Plain Yeast Dough with Raisins and Almonds
The Kugelhopf is a yeast cake from Alsace, baked in a fluted mould. This page gives a home recipe in baker's percent, scaled from 1 kg to 25 kg of flour, with the decoration, the values that are known and the faults to watch.
The formula
| Ingredient | Baker's % | Per 500 g flour |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat flour (type 405) | 100 % | 500 g |
| Milk (200 ml, about 206 g) | 41.2 % | 206 g |
| Eggs (2 medium, at 53 g each, an estimate) | 21.2 % | 106 g |
| Sugar | 12 % | 60 g |
| Fresh yeast (half a cube, 21 g) | 4.2 % | 21 g |
| Butter, soft | 16 % | 80 g |
| Raisins | 19 % | 95 g |
| Almonds, blanched and chopped | 10 % | 50 g |
| Total | 223.6 % | 1,118 g |
The raisins are 95 g, the middle of the 90 to 100 g in the recipe, and they soak in a little cherry brandy (kirsch). Without alcohol, soak them in black tea. The home recipe lists neither a weight for the vanilla (a pinch) nor for the kirsch, and it does not list salt. A yeast dough normally needs salt, so check this in your trials.
The mould is prepared apart from the dough: butter the mould, and put 18 g of good blanched almonds into it. That is 3.6 % of the flour, and it counts as part of the decoration below.
Scaled to bakery batches
| Ingredient | 1 kg flour | 10 kg flour | 25 kg flour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat flour (type 405) | 1,000 g | 10,000 g | 25,000 g |
| Milk (200 ml, about 206 g) | 412 g | 4,120 g | 10,300 g |
| Eggs (2 medium, at 53 g each, an estimate) | 212 g | 2,120 g | 5,300 g |
| Sugar | 120 g | 1,200 g | 3,000 g |
| Fresh yeast (half a cube, 21 g) | 42 g | 420 g | 1,050 g |
| Butter, soft | 160 g | 1,600 g | 4,000 g |
| Raisins | 190 g | 1,900 g | 4,750 g |
| Almonds, blanched and chopped | 100 g | 1,000 g | 2,500 g |
| Dough | 2,236 g | 22,360 g | 55,900 g |
How the numbers are calculated
- Add the percentages. 100 + 41.2 + 21.2 + 12 + 4.2 + 16 + 19 + 10 = 223.6 %. Total dough weight is always flour weight × 2.236.
- From the dough you want to the flour you need. Flour = dough weight ÷ 2.236. For 20 cakes of 1118 g you need 22,360 g of dough, so 22,360 ÷ 2.236 = 10,000 g of flour.
- From the flour to each ingredient. Ingredient = flour × percent ÷ 100. With 10,000 g of flour: milk 4,120 g, eggs 2,120 g, sugar 1,200 g, fresh yeast 420 g, butter 1,600 g, raisins 1,900 g, almonds 1,000 g.
- Pieces from a batch. 10 kg of flour makes 22,360 g of dough. At 1118 g per piece that is 20 pieces.
You can do the same with the baker's percentage calculator: enter the percentages above and tick flour and liquid.
Decoration
Decoration is part of the formula. The Kugelhopf has two: whole blanched almonds in the bottom of the mould, which show on the top of the cake when it is turned out, and powdered sugar dusted on after baking. The powdered sugar has no weight in the recipe. Weigh it per cake in your bakery and put it in the costing, as well as the butter for greasing the mould.
| Decoration and mould | Per cake | 20 cakes |
|---|---|---|
| Whole blanched almonds in the mould | 18 g | 360 g |
| Butter for the mould | not weighed | not weighed |
| Powdered sugar after baking | not weighed | not weighed |
In the bakery
- This is a plain yeast dough. The Kugelhopf is a home recipe from Alsace and an ordinary, fairly simple yeast dough. It is not a creamed batter, and it has no baking powder. It is a good candidate for an industrial product, with the raw materials adapted for it.
- Weight. One cake is about 1,118 g of dough plus 18 g of almonds in the mould. The baking loss of this cake is not known, so the baked weight is not given.
- Proof and baking. The recipe gives no times and no oven temperature. Published Alsatian recipes of the same type let the dough rise once for 45 to 60 minutes, fill the mould, let it rise again for 30 to 45 minutes, and bake about 45 minutes at 175 to 180 °C. Treat these as a starting point from other recipes. They are not values from your bakery.
Things to watch
- Proof too long or too short: an over-proofed cake collapses, an under-proofed cake is dense. Fill the mould and proof until the dough nearly reaches the rim.
- Mould not greased: the cake sticks and does not come out. Grease the mould well, especially the grooves.
- Raisins: drain the soaked raisins well, so that they do not make the dough wet.
- Browning too early: if the top gets dark before the inside is baked, cover the cake loosely during the second half of the bake.
Sources
- King Arthur Baking: Baker's Percentage (professional reference)
- BAKERpedia: Baker's Percent
- Wissensforum Backwaren (Reineke, 2009): Faults in bread and small baked goods and how to remove them
- Lecker: Elsässer Gugelhupf (proof and baking values of a published recipe)
- SRF: Gugelhupf by Christine Ferber (baking temperature and time of a published recipe)