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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Grandma's Kiermeskuch - Luxembourgish Raisin Bread


For those following my Facebook page you heard about grandma ordering a Kiermeskuch. She loves going to pastry shops and have all sorts of cakes. My grandpa started baking when he got retired and made a lot of yummy carnival or Christmas cookies, nicely decorated birthday cakes or just some traditional Luxembourgish cakes. Now I took over the baking activities in the family. I'd say that for the whole cookie story I've been a good provider so far but in regards of traditional cakes and dishes, I have to admit that my list is quite empty.


Even though you can still buy this raisin bread in all the local bakeries, the tradition around it is about to disappear. In former times, all the small villages had their little fairs during the years. It weren't the big ones with roller coasters but rather small attractions. The local wind section played a Kiermes song called Hemmelsmarsch. Kids were following them and on Sunday, the actual fair day, families gathered and had the traditional Fair dishes like: Kirmes soup, Kiermes ham and this recipe the Kiermeskuch (Kiermescake)


Due to the urbanisation of the bigger towns these kinds of events are about to slowly disappear. Dad's doing his best to prepare us regularly the Kiermes soup, which I am not necessarily a fan of, but I'm sure after tasting the cake he will ask for more. Grandpa would be happy to see that within the family the takeover was a great success!


For one Kiermeskuch you need:

400g flour
1tsp dry yeast
80g sugar
125ml warm milk
1 pinch of salt
60g butter
2 eggs
100g raisins

*******

Preheat the oven to 250°

Put the flour into a large bowl. In a smaller bowl whisk the yeast the sugar and the warm milk and add the mix to the flour. Beat the eggs then add them, the butter and a pinch of salt and start kneading. Kneading is a necessary step to ensure the bread dough rises properly afterward. Finally add the raisins.

Cover the dough with a towel and let it prove for at least 30 minutes.

Now put the dough into a loaf pan and bake first for 10 minutes. Decrease the temperature to 200° and bake another 40 minutes.

******

Usually we put butter on it or jam. In autumn and winter most often plum jam. 

Enjoy!!!!!




2 comments:

  1. I love baking bread and always look for new recipes to try...this one looks good! Hope can try it soon! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you ever tried the bread? If yes, did you like it?

      Delete

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