Kuchen

My mother was a great kuchen baker.  She learned from her mother, my grandmother.  She would make kuchen almost every Saturday.  We grew up eating a lot of kuchen!!   My favorite was peach or apricot.  We would use other fruits and made rhubarb, apple, blueberry, raisin,  plum and prune.  Lately I have tried peach and raspberry together and that is delicious.  Do not use pineapple or melons, those fruits do not work. My mom's favorite was cottage cheese and apricot. If using cottage cheese in kuchen dry cottage cheese works the best.  It is hard to find, so if needed creamy cottage cheese can be rinsed and dried. 


Kuchen

Sweet Roll Dough

5 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening or butter
1 1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp. granular yeast

Scald milk, add sugar and butter and cool to warm (90 degrees).  Dissolve yeast in about 1/4 cup hot (95-105 degree) water with 1/2 tsp sugar added.  Let stand 5 minutes, it should start to grow.  Pour milk mixture into a mixer bowl.  Add the yeast and mix.  Add 3 cups of flour and beat vigorously. Add salt and eggs, beat well again.  Gradually add remaining flour, more if needed for a medium soft-stiff dough.  Knead dough until smooth, about 5 minutes.  Pat in to a large greased bowl to rise until double in bulk.  Punch down, let rise again.  Shape into balls 4-6 inches in diameter, depending on size of pans you will be using. Place balls on floured pastry cloth.  Let rise about 30 minutes.

 Roll out quite thin and put in well greased kuchen or cake pans, sides and bottom..  (8-10 inch pans will work.) Let set about 15 minutes, prick with a fork, sides too, but not through to the bottom.

Sprinkle the dough in the pan with a little nutmeg.  Add desired fruit, fill in the edges then the center. (If using rhubarb, sprinkle a little sugar on top of it.) Sprinkle with flour mixture, a tablespoon or two.  Add the filling, 1 1/2 to 2 soup scoops.  Then sprinkle with flour mixture to lightly cover.  Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake at 350 degrees, until not wobbly.  (25-35 minutes.)  Let cool in pan a couple minutes, then place on a cooling rack to cool.

Filling

Optional filling ingredient:

1 box of vanilla pudding, cooked kind, not instant

2 cups milk

Cook the pudding acccording to the directions.  Cool.  (Can be done the night before you plan to bake.)

If you can not find the cooked pudding you can google a vanilla pudding recipe.  
This is an optional addition to the filling recipe, my mom started to do this to make it a "lighter filling".

8 eggs, beaten  
3 1/2 cups cream and sour cream, a mix of the two is fine.
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Beat eggs.  Add cream and sugar.  Mix well.  Add salt and vanilla.  Mix cooled pudding into filling.

Flour mixture

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 tsp salt

Mix all together until crumbly.