December 22, 2009 - 10:48am
Stollen--All purpose or bread flour?
I'm about to make stollen for christmas, and see many recipes using all-purpose rather than read flour.
With all the dough goes through in adding fruit, I would think that a strong bread flour would help it still rise well. Is there any reason that one should use all-purpose flour rather than the bread flour I am inclined to use?
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I have never seen a formula for Stollen that uses bread flour. Even those that are yeasted use All Purpose flour. I can see why you might want to use bread flour for a better structure, but the Stollen I'm acquainted with is traditionally a bit heavier crumb than some other breads might be.
I'd suggest you try it, whether your formula includes yeast or baking powder as a leavening agent, and let us know how it works out.
is excellent if you want to use where a lot of recipes call for bread flour. I used it in my stollen and panettone.
Hi,
I used KA AP for my stollen with good results. It has high protein content for an AP flour and is readily available.
FYI,
MommaT
The stollen formula in ABAP calls for bread flour in both the preferment and the final dough.
Loosely following the recipe here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5407/dutch-regale039s-almondrum-stollen (though I added 2 eggs and halved the amount of butter, and used a mix of grand marnier and rum to soak the fruit).
It turned out pretty good, though I'm struggling to wait until morning to taste it. It came out of the oven about an hour ago.
The only issue was that in the final proofing it rose well, and pulled apart two of the four loaves I made, exposing the marzipan center.
Perhaps all-purpose flour would have not risen so well. More likely it was my shaping technique. This is the first stollen I have made fr a decade, and those were not very well shaped.
Thanks for all the advice, everyone.
I read(BBA) you have to make sure you have made a good seal after making the fold. The ap flour would probably have been "cakier", the bread flour "breadier".
Looks good though. Try to post a crumb shot, whenever.
It definitely is breadier rather than cakey. Still delicious, though. I'll try with all-purpose flour next year.
I think it could have held up more fruit than I eneded up using (maybe because I ate a bit of the liquor-soaked fruit while waiting for the proofing).
Here's the crumb:
It has a very nice looking crumb and the shaping looks very nice and has your personal touch. I bet it tasted wonderful.
Happy Holidays!
Sylvia
I made a test run of Stollen earlier this week and used bread flour. The feedback I got was impressive and I was told not to change a thing.
