Chocolate Banana Yeast Gugelhupf

Simple and delicious, this Chocolate Banana Gugelhupf will enrich any table situation! With sweet and creamy banana, completed with silky chocolate to give this dessert a marble look, will make others to ask seconds and ask for the recipe!

Back in the day, and I mean back in the days of the ’80s, in my primary school days, Croatia was the part of a bigger state, now former Yugoslavia. Therefore, us little Croats but also Slovenians, Serbians, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Bosnian people learned to communicate both in written or spoken way with other nationalities. Therefore, as a kid, I learned Serbian Cyrillic in school.

Fast forward some 35+ years, we don’t need Cyrillic anymore, but it may come in pretty handy sometimes. Namely, a few years ago, while browsing the flea market, I got my hands to a very old and very heavy book of “Patin kuvar“, which is the cooking Bible for every Serbian household. If not a Bible, but surely they have a copy! And, it’s written in small, dense, Cyrillic letters which, as I said, I can read, so I did. And boy I found stuff!

As I said, “Patin kuvar” is really jam packed with recipes only few of those are vegan(isable). But there are many recipes that I could use as inspiration and make up my own. So his whole intro was to give credit to this book, where I found recipe “Šareni kuglof” on page 512. (meaning, colourful gugelhupf, or marble cake). It was made with yeast so I found it really easy to adapt to our needs.

Do you love Gugelhupfs, by the way? Oh, I do! Only to think of all the vintage moulds we can use! I have a good quite a few of them but am always looking for more.

Furthermore, when I went vegan, I said goodbye to most of my baking habits and methods, and I was baking a lot, and I mean, a lot. So there was a whole new world of plant-based baking that I needed to enter in, because sure I wasn’t gonna give up on baking, right? Gugelhupfs, both risen with yeast or baking powder, were among the first delices that I began to bake.

Gugelhupfs are made in heaven, if you ask me. I guess Adam made the first Gugelhupf mould for Eve? Hehe! I don’t know! But they are easy to whip up, especially if you are into eggless & dairy free like me, so it’s even cheaper and easier. And safer – you can lick the spoon to try if it’s sweet enough! Gugelhupfs are handy to have prepared in advance because they can keep pretty for up to 4 days, in cool place.

VEGAN CHOCOLATE BANANA GUGELHUPF

120 ml (1/2 c) plant milk, I used almond
1 large banana (1 c, tightly packed)
180 ml (2/3 c) oil, I used sunflower oil
5 tbsp sugar or other sweetener to your choice
pinch of salt
300 g (2 c) all purpose flour
2 tsp instant yeast
100 g (little less than 4 oz) chocolate or chocolate chips
vegan butter/margarine for spreading on the mould, as well as some flour for dusting

Put the milk and banana in the food processor and whiz a few times till the banana is completely mushy. Pour the mass in the mixing bowl, ad oil, sugar and salt and stir. Ad flour with yeast and mix till everything is incorporated nicely. The dough should be soft and sticky but not runny, so ad a tbsp of flour if needed.
Melt the chocolate and cool it down so it’s runny but not hot.
Divide the dough between two bowls and stir in the chocolate into one of them.
Take the Gugelhupf mould, spread butter all over the inside of it and dust it with flour. Remove the excess flour by turning the mould upside down and tapping on its bottom.
With two spoons, fill the mould with dough, alternating both yellow and chocolate mass to give it a marble look. When done, you can make a few swirls more with a knife or a stick.
Cover the mould and leave the dough to rise up to a nice hour. It won’t double in size but it will rise in the oven.
In the meanwhile, heat the oven up to 180°C/375 F.
Bake the Gugelhupf for a good 40 – 45 mins or until it’s all nicely browned and when you press it gently, it springs back.
When baked, remove it from the mould gently but don’t cut it nor eat it before it’s completely cooled on the rack. Why? Well, if cut before cooled down, yeast dough will become soggy and lose its fluffiness and become rough on the cut side. And, your belly might ache a bit from eating the piping hot yeast dough.
Anyhow, cool it down, sprinkle with some sugar or pour over some chocolate glaze and enjoy it!

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