Christmas Baking: Stollen

Man, there is nothing in the world that makes me think Christmas more then bread with candied fruit and peel in it. The smell and taste: there’s nothing like it! My Mom traditionally makes a tea ring chock full of these ingredients and the whole family always eats it Christmas morning around the Christmas tree.

Last year I discovered another delicious recipe that was brimming with my favorite Christmas staples: Stollen. One of the 4 followers of my blog (Thanks Guys!:) may remember that I posted a teaser November 5^th of my ingredients steeping as prep for this recipe (Which I should note my Sister commented ‘Probably would look better once it’s been used’. It made me laugh, it may have only looked appealing to a baker!). But I didn’t really go into detail.

Stollen is a traditional German Christmas bread (Although it’s wiki entry describes it more as a bread-like fruitcake to help provide some insight into the actual texture) full of candied fruit, candied peel, various nuts, and raisins. For my version, I chose to use a mix from a school recipe that was used the first time I was introduced to this yummy treat: candied fruit & peel, walnuts, almonds, and sultana raisins. Then I ‘winged’ the rest of the recipe. I allowed the fruit and nut mixture to sit in a quantity of rum for about a month and a half before using it. One Chef I learned from would start this steeping process for Stollen and Fruit cake 6 months before making the actual recipe! Now that’s what I call being organized about your prep work.

Traditionally, Stollen is sprinkled with icing sugar. A variation I was taught in school really takes Stollen to a new level of decadence. We would coat the cooked loaf with butter and then cover it with icing sugar. This was repeated twice. Alternatively, we sliced the loaf into pieces and dunked each piece individually in butter and then icing sugar twice. Any of the options are good: sprinkling, coating the whole loaf, or each piece individually. Stollen would even taste good without a garnish at all!

Stollen also sometimes has another ingredient: marzipan. Rolled up inside the bread, marzipan really adds to the flavor of the bread. Last year, I tried a recipe that I found on the internet and left the marzipan out. I didn’t think anyone would notice and I didn’t want to track the marzipan down. My Mother tried one bite and commented that the bread would taste really good with marzipan: all without knowing that this is a regularly used ingredient!! So, lesson learned: this year I put marzipan inside the loaves. On a side note, if you are planning on making Stollen with marzipan pick it up when you see it. My usual supplier was completely out (‘Tis the season for it to sell out I have to admit) and I had to do a fair bit of running around to get some.