''Butterkuchen'' or ''Zuckerkuchen'' is a simple German
butter cake
A butter cake is a cake in which one of the main ingredients is butter. Butter cake is baked with basic ingredients: butter, sugar, Egg (food), eggs, flour, and leavening agents such as baking powder or baking soda. It is considered one of the q ...
baked on a tray.
Flakes of
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of Churning (butter), churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 81% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread (food ...
, which, after baking, form the characteristic holes, are distributed on the
dough
Dough is a malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from flour (which itself is made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops). Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes ...
.
The whole cake is sprinkled with sugar or
streusel
In baking and pastry making, streusel () is a crumbly topping of flour, butter, and sugar that is baked on top of muffins, breads, pies, and cakes. .
After further kneading the ''Butterkuchen'' is baked. As a variation the dough can be sprinkled with roasted
almond
The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera ...
flakes.
''Butterkuchen'' is a favourite element of Westphalian and North German coffee tables. It is also served at weddings and funerals and, as a result, is sometimes called ''Freud-und-Leid-Kuchen'' ("joy and sorrow cake") or ''Beerdigungskuchen'' ("funeral cake").
A regional variation is to sprinkle the ''Butterkuchen'' with a sugar-
cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...
mixture rather than with sugar alone. This is very similar to
Moravian Sugar Cake.
In Germany in the trade, at least 30 parts butter, clarified butter or butterfat must be used to 100 parts of flour.
File:Butterkuchen.jpg, Large tray of Butterkuchen
File:Butterkuchen traditionell.jpg, Close-up of texture on top. Melted pieces of butter create depressions on the surface.
File:Butter cake slice.jpg, Butterkuchen with almond slices on top
File:Schiffsbäcker in der Kombüse beim Backen von Streuselkuchen.png, A sailor prepares butterkuchen for the crew.
See also
*
Kouign-amann
Kouign-amann (; ; ) is a sweet, round Breton laminated dough pastry, originally made with bread dough (nowadays sometimes viennoiserie dough), containing layers of butter and incorporated sugar, similar in fashion to puff pastry albeit with fe ...
*
List of butter dishes
This is a list of notable butter dishes and foods in which butter is used as a primary ingredient or as a significant component of a dish or a food. Butter is a dairy product that consists of butterfat, milk proteins, and water. It is made by c ...
*
List of cakes
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
Sources
{{reflist, refs=
[{{cite book , last=Weiss , first=L. , title=Classic German Baking: The Very Best Recipes for Traditional Favorites, from Gugelhupf to Streuselkuchen , publisher=Ten Speed Press , year=2016 , isbn=978-1-60774-825-0 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3GYYDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA82 , accessdate=February 3, 2017 , page=82]
* IREKS-GmbH: IREKS-ABC der Bäckerei, Eigenverlag Kulmbach
External links
Deutscher Butterkuchen - German Buttercakerecipe
- NY Times
Foods featuring butter
North German cuisine
German cakes