Carinthian Easter Reindling

In between various household chores and sunbathing on my window sill (poor substitute for a balcony, but better than nothing), I baked a Reindling today. Hard-core Carinthians eat slices of it with grated horeradish and boiled Easter ham on top, but we've never done that in my family. As my mother's family is from another region of Austria originally, she never baked Reindling, but we got a really good one from my paternal granny. She is 93 years old now and has given up her active baking career so we get our supply from my parents' cleaning lady, Mrs. K. who also gave my Mum the recipe I used. Here goes.

Carinthian Easter Reindling

(makes 1 big cake or 2 smaller ones, depending on the mould you use)

Ingredients

500 g flour (course-grained, preferably)
a pinch of salt
grated zest of 1 lemon
80 g melted butter
80g sugar
1 egg
1 pkg (42) fresh yeast
2 egg yolks
250 ml milk
rum to taste

&
cinnamon
sugar
raisins
melted butter

In a small bowl crumble the yeast and cover it with a sprinkling of sugar and a bit of milk. Cover with a handful of flour and leave to proof.

I a big bowl mix flour, salt, lemon zest and sugar. Add the egg and yolks. Put the butter and milk in a cup or bowl and warm/melt in the microwave (don't let it overheat, it should be about 37°, i.e. body temperature). Add to the rest of the ingredients together with the rum and mix well (using your mixer with dough hooks). Cover with a dishcloth and leave to proof until the dough has doubled in volume and looks positively radioactive (think mushroom cloud):

Knead once more (attention: V-E-R-Y sticky!) and then roll out on a floured surface. Brush generously with melted butter. Cover with sugar (I used demerara), then cinammon, followed by a second layer of sugar. If you like raisins (I personally prefer currants) add a handful of raisins. Roll the dough to a big "sausage" and put in a buttered mould. Use a "Guglhupf" mould if you have one but any oven-proof bowl will do. I transferred the dough into a big and a small pan and let it proof once more for a 45 minutes or so.
Heat your oven to 175-180° (170 is enough if you have a fan setting) and bake for an hour (less if you use smaller pans, I took the small one out of the oven after 45 mins). Cover the surface with tin foil to prevent it from getting too dark after 3/4 of the baking time. Turn out of the mould while still warm and put on a plate upside down.

Like all yeasty pastries it tastes best on the first day, but also freezes well.