Cuisine
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CRAVING KUGELHOPF?
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THE ORANGE
SWEETS & CITRUS
LADY W
C’EST FRANÇAIS
Let Them Eat Cake KUGELHOPF’S LOUISIANA BEGINNINGS
“O
Story and photo by Lorin Gaudin
h no, Lorin, my wise men on their long journey from Made of ceramic, the tall, round, and kugelhopf is Bethlehem. More bread than cake fluted kugelhopf pan has a hole in the from Lorraine.” (there’s even a savory version) in my center, allowing for large cakes to be These were the understanding, Kugelhopf remains baked thoroughly because heat comes commanding words of Maurice French a staple throughout Europe, though in direct contact with the middle of Pastries Chef-Owner, Jean-Luc Albin, most popular in France, Germany, the cake. How it arrived in America is as we began our conversation about the Austria, and the Alsace-Lorraine. fascinating lore in itself. Purportedly, kugelhopf ’s name, shape, and origin. Tilting his head in a very French an heirloom kugelhopf pan made it Kugelhopf is a hat-shaped cake with manner, Chef Albin gave a crooked to Minneapolis (home of bakeware storied and varied legends, including smile and said, “Pfffft...Alsatian manufacturer, Nordic Ware) and was The Variety Restaurant considered CHV’s “mothership,” promises bring oneChurch claimHill that it was giftedandtoFarm, a man kugelhopf is dryer. That is to not thefresh-fromway used by a member of a Jewish women's the-farm fine dining to the community of Church Hill and surrounding areas in 2021. who provided shelter to the three we make it in Lorraine.” group who often baked a sharing cake 38
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called a bundkuchen. Near the end of the 1940s, the women's group is said to have approached the Nordic Ware founder and requested he re-create the pretty fluted pan using contemporary materials, and thus was born the bundt pan. But kugelhopf has a Louisiana life, a history all its own. And while Chef Albin’s kugelhopf is a tweak of Chef Maurice Ravet’s original, his version has certainly carried the tradition most
