A yeasted confection from Alsace made with an enriched dough which lies somewhere between bread and cake. It's traditionally made with almonds and raisins and can be found in abundance at the Strasbourg Christmas Markets.
100gunsalted buttermelted - plus a little extra for greasing the moulds
pinchsea salt
2medium eggsfree range of course
25gflaked almonds+ 10g for the topping
Instructions
The first thing to do is to get your raisins soaking in rum. The earlier you can do this the better, but leave them at least 1 hour before they're needed. Place the raisin and rum in a small jar and give a shake every so often.
Warm the milk until tepid. Place in the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and yeast and stir until they're dissolved.
Stir in 100g of the flour, cover with a cloth or plastic bag and leave in a a warm place for 20 minutes to ferment.
Brush 12 mini kouglof or bundt moulds (or one large one) with a little melted butter. Scatter a few slivered almonds over the bottoms of each mould.
Add the remaining flour, butter, salt and eggs to the ferment and knead using the dough hook of the stand mixer or hand held mixer for 10 minutes. The dough is too soft to knead by hand, so if you don't have an electric mixer, stir hard with a metal spoon instead.
Finally throw in the raisins with any remaining rum and the slivered almonds and knead until everything is well combined.
Divide the mixture between the 12 moulds. Place in a large plastic bag ensuring there is plenty of room for the dough to rise. Leave in a warm place for a couple of hours or until the dough has completely filled the moulds.
Bake at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for 20 minutes when the kougloffs are golden and an inserted skewer comes out clean. You will need longer in the oven for a larger kouglof. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
Notes
Soaking the raisins in Amaretto instead of the rum would be good too and accentuate the almonds.The kouglofs will need at least a couple of hours to rise, plus an initial 20 minute fermentation.Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They’re approximate and will depend on serving size and exact ingredients used.