Sublime Stollen.....German Xmas Bread

Stollen is one of my favourite Xmas breads, in fact all breads.

Not surprising given my fondness for fruit, cherries and marzipan….

Not fond of dark rum though…a tipple of white rum, yes!!

Sublime…

Just gorgeous with Marzipan

The one I make has fruit that has been sitting in rum for a week or so….

It is also chocka block with fruit and cherries and my favourite, marzipan…

I have to say that I feel this years Stollen is magnificent:)

It has been sitting for ten days wrapped up, now it is ready to unleash!!

The first one, I scoffed in a few days….

Delish!!

You do need patience, so don’t think it is a quick bread.

It is also BEST left for a week or so to ‘mature’.

This is why the recipe I will give you, makes 2 big ones….One for now and one for later.

One last wee thing…..

NO NO NO !!

Don’t even think about it!!!

DONT USE THAT HIDEOUS WHITE ICING , FONDANT OR ALMOND ICING THAT IS NOT PROPER MARZIPAN!!!

I will know and come round to your house!!

Sorry to be an arse but it makes it taste like crap and it ruins it….

You are probably thinking “food nazi” but seriously, why take the time to make this beautiful only to ruin it with something that is wrong for the bread.

You wouldn’t use substandard choccy for a brownie, so NO ICING!! or make meringues with granulated instead of castor sugar.

So use marzipan or mandorle (almond paste)  or make your own almond paste or marzipan…

Marzipan is made from the almond paste, it just has more sugar in it.

NO ICING, FONDANT, ALMOND FLAVOURS ETC ETC ETC…NO, NO, NO. NO!!!

Grind them, baby!!

So without any further blathering…….and lecturing…

*******You need to soak the fruit at least a week before hand**********

YOU WILL NEED!!

500 g cake mix

1/2 cup of chopped up Glace cherries

1 cup of black rum

20 g of dried yeast.

200-300 g marzipan.

1 cup of milk warmed

1 cup of flour -(any is ok….err no wholemeal)

2 tsp sugar

4 cups of strong bakers flour

Pinch of salt

2 tbsp cinnamon

2 tsp cloves

2 eggs

100 g butter softened

soaking the fruit…

First you need to soak your fruit and cherries in the dark rum a week before hand.

Cover and place in fridge!!

SEE YOU IN A WEEK:)

Stollen sponge

Warm milk, stir in sugar and add yeast.

Mix well and leave to become frothy for 10-15 minutes.

Add in 1 cup of flour and stir well.

Cover and leave for an hour.

Drain any liquid off the soaking fruit.

Reserve liquid and pour into spongey mix after an hour.

Stollen dough….time to rest:)

Add all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir through.

Beat eggs and pour into yeasty mix with excess rum liquid from fruit.

Toss fruit very lightly in a little flour and set aside.

Pour eggy yeasty mix into dry and form a dough.

Knead for 10 minutes, adding in the softened butter until smooth and combined.

Some people put their fruit in before kneading and then knead with the fruit….I don’t like that.

You can ,once the dough is formed and kneaded as above, then lightly mix the fruit through, in 2-3 batches.

I usually wait until after it has risen and do it then.

Place marzipan in dough…

So once the dough (fruit or no fruit) is ready, place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover and leave for 2 hours.

Turn out dough on lightly floured board/ bench.

I will now incorporate my fruit, in 2-3 batches and then cut the dough in half.

You could make three of these instead of two as this gives you two BIG stollens.

I then lightly push dough out to form like an oval shape.

The beauty of stollen, is that it is supposed to resemble a sort of crescent BUT there is no hard and fast….

It’s supposed to be mishapen etc…

roll up dough over the marzipan

I place my marzipan roll up near the edge of the dough and fold dough over it, pinching in the ends in the middle.

I then bring the edge closest to me, into the middle as well and then tweak together.

roll the dough fully…

You definitely want it to be humpy/lumpy looking.

Place the crescent-shaped loaves on a tray with baking paper.

I like to brush them with melted butter now and cover with gladwrap lightly and then a tea towel.

Leave to rise for about 90 minutes.

pre rising…

rising….full of cherries and fruit…

Preheat the oven to 180 celsius.

Gently remove gladwrap and place stollen in the oven.’

Bake for 20 minutes and then turn the stollen around so it is evenly baked.

I find that 40-45 minutes, until goldy brown, is enough…

Remove from oven and allow to cool.

When cool, dust with icing sugar.

If you are keeping one, then wrap tightly in a muslin cloth or tinfoil.

Ready to bake..

Cooling….

Wrapping the one for later…

dusted and ready to eat!!

See the marzipan….

Fully dusted….

Tasty…

ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY

MERRY XMAS….

This stollen recipe is an old family one, passed down through my eldest son, whose paternal family is German.

Tweaked a little for NZ conditions so to speak....

Peter Reinhart does a lovely Stollen and I found this one the other day which I will try next Xmas.

Well I will probably make a mid year one:)

It is richer and needs a good month or so prep…so be warned:)

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25407/dresden-christmas-stollen

Just gorgeous with Marzipan

 http://greedybread.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/sublime-stollen-german-xmas-bread/#more-2297