The reindling or reinling is a specialty gugelhupf from the Austrian state of Carinthia, but in its homeland it is not just a dessert. Particularly at Easter, it is served together with Easter eggs, Easter ham, eggs with horseradish, and sausage. At traditional wedding receptions, it is actually served with the meat dish, in which case it is of course prepared without sugar and filled with tarragon leaves instead of raisins and nuts.
The Hooded Monk, with the Kugelhopf
Gugelhupf is the icon of Viennese baking. Whether the gugelhupf really originates in Vienna is, like most sweet Viennese legends, not at all clear. After all, the French have their gougelhof, the Germans their Kugelhopf, the Friuli their cuguluf. Linguistically, the roots of these words are very much united and go back to the Middle High German word “gugel,” which means “hood” or “headscarf” (creating the old mocking term for a Franciscan monk, “Gugelfranz”) and the German word “Hefe,” meaning yeast. This would make gugelhupf a “yeast hood.”
