November 20, 2011 - 11:18pm
Storing Stollen in Australian heat
Well it's stinking hot here in Australia. I've just made my Christmas stollen for the second year. My question, if anyone can help me, is this, do I glaze it with melted butter/oil and dredge with icing sugar now, and then how do I store it in this heat? Or... do I NOT glaze and dredge, but store somehow and reheat at Christmas and glaze and dredge with icing sugar on the day? Can anyone help?
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Well, I suspect that most methods of bread storage won't work for a whole month no matter what ...even before considering butter and icing and hot weather. (Unless your intention is for the fruit to generate that funny alcoholic flavor I remember from wedding fruitcakes:-) Which brings up a couple questions:
Thanks for replying. I have a freezer, not a lot of room coming up to Christmas, but I'll squeeze it in. I froze last years Stollen and as we have never tasted authentic Stollen, we all enjoyed it immensely. I have read though that in cooler climates that people don't freeze them, but put them in a basement or some place cool for up to six weeks before eating and the flavour develops and the texture changes. I wish! Oh well, it looks like I'll be freezing it again. We freeze all our other bread if we need to and find it reheats beautifully, however not quite like fresh baked and cooled. : ( We will just have to enjoy it as is.
Just in case it isn't already crystal clear to future readers, please ignore the responses above here and start with the response below here. A combination of insufficient background knowledge, over-eagerness to respond in any old way, and misunderstanding (maybe I would have better understood the word "aging" rather than the word "storing":-) led me off into la-la land.
by wrapping in freezer wrap (waxed brown paper) and tying with a string, and finding a dark cool cupboard to store them in, the closer to the floor the better, and if at all possible in a basement. These are supposed to be poked with a toothpick and drenched with wine, rum or whiskey but I just store them. I would say that if you dredged them and wrapped them the same, and stored them as cool as you could get them, (not frozen) they would probably do just fine. If you think it would be too messy, then simply wrap the undredged stollen, and keep as cool as possible, then dredge in the butter and sugar a day before cutting.
Hi there, thanks for replying. Drenching them with wine, rum or whisky sounds just a wee bit tasty. Do you live in a warmer climate too? Just wondering. Our usual daytime temps are around 28 to 30C. I should at least test one of them in this method to see if they do okay in this weather. Thanks for your input. I've never heard of freezer wrap here. We have a paper that is like tracing paper with a wax finish that mums sometimes wrap lunches in. Do you think that would work?
other places its a heavy brown paper with a waxed side for wrapping cuts of meat in and placing in the freezer.
The stuff you describe we would call waxed paper, and yes you could use that, but if placing in the freezer then put the whole into a solid freezer bag to keep it from drying out.
We can get those hot temps here in the summer, but I live in the far northeast of BC Canada and we have a more temerpate climate (well we are supposed to) but I have regular fruit cake, both dark and light that I have kept from last Xmas, its only sat on a shelf one in the basement and one in the dining room, they are just fine. I think it makes a difference the amount of sugar and fat in the cakes or breads, but they keep perfectly fine. These are not wrapped in anything but a freezer bag, and just on the shelf. I've eaten cake that was three or four years old, (these can be dry but they are tasty made into a trifle with some whiskey to wet it up a bit) and no mould, those were wrapped in waxed paper and over wrapped with newprint (just buy a brand new newspaper and use the inside leaves they are quite sterile due to the heat from the printing process) and stored in a cool place.
As for the wetting up of the cakes, its supposed to be a sherry glass (probably about an ounce or so at a time) and you poke holes into the cakes, dribble the stuff over the top so it soaks in the holes, then re-wrap the cake and let it sit again, until the next soaking. I also have a recipe for Dundee cake which says to soak a piece of cheesecloth or muslin cloth in whiskey and wrap around the cake, and then wrap and then wrap the whole in foil, if it would have fit in a plastic bag I'd have put it in that. I tried that method as I have some Laphroid scotch that is very smokey and no one wanted to drink it plain, and it made the cake very tasty. (that might be misspelled as to the name of the scotch its from Islay and not blended) single malt. Expensive stuff which is why its going in fruit cake this year to soak the fruit before mixing.
The temps in the house are around 70-75 downstairs in summer, and as high as 90-95 upstairs and the cake is just fine in its freezer bags on the shelf.
you don't have to bake them so far ahead. Once the stollen cools, it can be served within a few days if desired. Wrap in an sherry drenched thin cotton cloth for safe keeping, frost before serving. You might want to make a stollen the opposite time of year when cooler. Storing in the fridge is dangerous for the crumb, too low temps will lead to a crumbly stollen (staling) that doesn't hold together when cutting. With warm temps and humidity, you might want to make something more like bars or cookies keeping the same flavours. Easier handling at picnics too! Dunk to soften. :)
Thanks MiniOven for your reply too. My hubby will be very excited to hear your reply as that would mean that he could tuck in now rather than wait till Christmas. We may just do that and I'll bake another lot closer to the day. We had one last year and totally fell in love with it. I stored the last one in the freezer and hauled it out Christmas morning. I can't remember it being crumbly, but a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since last year. All I can remember is that it was different and tasty. I made it last year with commercial yeast but this year made it using sourdough sponge. So it'll be different again. Thanks so much for your advice. It's weird... up until a couple of years ago, I had never heard of Stollen, or any of those other European celebration breads, but now they are in the supermarkets at Christmas everywhere. I looked at the ingredient list of the supermarket Stollen and decided to stick with homemade! Happy holidays!
"I stored the last one in the freezer and hauled it out Christmas morning."
That's the right way! Storing it just above freezing in a refrigerator is not the way to go. Just wanna be clear. :)