When I saw the headline of the Guardian article – Churn Baby Churn – I knew that there’d be a recipe for me to attempt. You see, the recipes in the collection all have one thing in common… lots & lots of butter… Justin’s favourite ingredient!
I think I may have heard of butterkuchen (butter cake) before – perhaps I’d seen it made on Bake Off. Butterkuchen or Freud-und-Leid-Kuchen (Joy and Sorrow cake) or Beerdigungskuchen (funeral cake) is often served on occasions such as weddings and funerals or alongside a coffee as a sweet snack in (particularly Northern) German coffee shops. It’s made using a yeasted, enriched dough and, as well as all that butter, huge amounts of sugar too.
You spread the well-kneaded dough out on to a rectangular baking sheet, allow it to rise, prod holes in it, fill the holes with cubes of cold butter, sprinkle with lashings of sugar and flaked almonds, allow to rise again before baking for a quarter of an hour.
The resulting cake is truly scrumptious. The taste and texture reminded Justin of doughnuts. I thought that it also looked like a sweet version of a focaccia.
It’s a new favourite cake on our recipe rolodex!
Click here or on the image below to save the butterkuchen recipe to Pinterest
Butterkuchen
Equipment
- stand mixer
- dough hook
- lipped baking sheet
Ingredients
- 13 g quick action yeast
- 50 g caster sugar
- 8 g vanilla sugar
- 200 ml milk lukewarm
- 400 g plain flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 egg
- 50 g unsalted butter melted, then cooled
- 150 g unsalted butter well chilled
- 150 g granulated sugar
- 8 g vanilla sugar
- 100 g flaked almonds
Instructions
- Put the yeast into a large measuring jug
- Sprinkle the 50g of caster sugar and 8g of vanilla sugar over the yeast, pour over the warm milk and stir well to dissolve
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, sift in the flour
- Add the salt, egg and melted butter
- Pour the yeast mixture over it and, using the dough hook, mix on the lowest speed until it begins to come together. Turn the dial to the highest setting and knead for about 5 minutes. The dough should form a large lump around the dough hook in the mixing bowl (if the dough is still a little too damp, sprinkle some flour and work it in well)
- Cover and allow the dough to rise in a warm place for about 15 minutes
- Knead the dough by hand and let it rise for another 15 minutes
- Meanwhile, grease & line a high-edged baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the dough out evenly across the sheet. Cover the dough again and let it rise well
- Press indentations into the dough about 5cm apart, the easiest way to do this is with your thumb or index finger
- Place knobs of the chilled butter into the indentations and sprinkle with sugar (amount depending on taste). Then distribute the almonds and vanilla sugar evenly over the sugared & buttered dough. The whole thing then has to rise again until the dough has visibly enlarged. (Note: don’t cover the dough at this point, otherwise the butter will stick to the cover)
- Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/Gas mark 6
- When the dough has risen, bake for 15 minutes and the top has turned a golden brown
- Allow to cool on the baking sheet and then cut into portions
