A cake of many names
The Gugelhupf is the undisputed king of cakes in the former Austro Hungarian Empire. In Austria everyone calls it Gugelhupf but in Hungary it is known as kuglof. If you travel further you will hear people calling it kouglof in Alsace or babka in Poland. It is essentially the same cake but every country wants to claim they invented it first. It is a round tall cake with a hole in the middle which is very convenient for carrying it like a giant edible ring.
The secret to the shape
The recipe is usually a simple yeast dough with raisins and almonds. Some people add chocolate to make it look like marble while others stick to the basic yellow version. The most important part is not the ingredients but the heavy ceramic tin. This tin has deep ridges that give the cake its iconic look. Without the hole in the middle the cake would probably never bake properly in the centre. The hole is a clever engineering trick disguised as a design choice.
Breakfast for an Emperor
Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria was obsessed with this cake. He ate a slice of Gugelhupf every single morning for breakfast. He was a man of very strict habits and clearly he did not believe in trying new things. His long term friend Katharina Schratt used to bake one for him regularly. Some historians suggest that his love for the cake was the only thing keeping the empire together during its final years. It is a lot of pressure for a piece of sweet bread.
Legend of the three kings
There is a very tall tale about the origin of the cake. Some people claim the three biblical kings were travelling through Alsace on their way back from Bethlehem. They were supposedly tired and hungry so the locals baked them a cake that looked like their turbans. This sounds like a story made up by a very creative bakery marketing team. It is much more likely that someone just found a weirdly shaped pot and decided to put dough in it.
A status symbol on the table
In the nineteenth century having a Gugelhupf on your table was a way to show your neighbours that you were doing well. It was the ultimate middle class status symbol. If your cake did not rise high enough or if it got stuck in the tin it was a social disaster. Today it is just a nice thing to eat with coffee while you complain about the weather. It has survived the fall of empires and the invention of low carb diets which is quite an achievement for a bundle of flour and sugar.
