My German grandma Americanized this recipe to fit her family's tastes.  I still make it each year to keep the family taraditions  alive.  It is a basic Sweet Yeast Dough.

1 and 1/4 cups milk, heated to 100 degrees F

1/2 cup of melted butter          1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar         1 egg, beaten

Slightly less than 1 tablespoon yeast     6-7 cups of bread flour

Method:   Place milk, butter, egg salt and sugar in a large bowl.  Mix to combine.  Add yeast and 6 cups of flour.  Place on floured surface and begin to knead.  Knead until dough is smooth but still rather soft.  Add additional flour as you knead.  It may take  more than 7 cups.  Place dough in buttered bowl and cover with plastic wrap or soft cloth.  Let rise until doubled in bulk.  Punch dough down and place on floured surface.  Cover with soft cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.  Cut dough in half and pat or roll each half into an oval.  Sprinkle surface with cinnamon and then place candied cherries, pineapple and whole pecans all over the surface.  Roll up tightly and form a crescent shape and place on buttered cookie sheet.  Let rise again until doubled.  Bake at 375 degrees F for 30-35 minutes.  check for doneness by tapping the bottom; if it sounds hollow, it is done.

One of my most beloved cookbooks is the original Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas. It began its life with me in San Francisco in the early 1970s and has traveled with me ever since, now nestled on a bookshelf in upstate New York. It is in tatters with no binding left, but that only makes me love it more. It is well used.

 I’ve made the Christmas Stollen from that book every year since I first got it, and it’s something that my family and I look forward to throughout the year. Because it’s an unyeasted “quick bread” recipe, it’s different from any Christmas Stollen I’ve ever tried, and from the first bite it stole my heart. It’s deeply rich from the butter and cream cheese, gently sweet from the fruit, rum and a bit of sugar, all balanced by the tang of lemon, mace and cardamom.

 A few years ago I decided to write a note to Anna Thomas letting her know that her stollen had become a treasured tradition in my family, and to my delight she wrote back a lovely note! Her newest book Love Soup is wonderful too, by the way.

 I made some changes way back in the 70s based on availability and personal preference and since it turned out so well I kept making it the same way. Here’s the version I’ve made all these years:

 Christmas Stollen

(my adaptation of Anna Thomas’s recipe from The Vegetarian Epicure)

  w/metric conversions:

  352 gms (2½ C.) unbleached AP flour

2 tsp. baking powder

125 gms (¾ C.) (or slightly less) sugar

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. mace

seeds of 5 - 6 cardamom pods, crushed (I usually use green) -or- ¼ tsp., rounded, powdered cardamom

100 gms (¾ C.) almond meal (or ground blanched almonds)

½ C. butter, cold

226 gms (1 C.) cream cheese (reduced fat OK), softened at room temperature

1 large egg, room temperature

½ tsp. pure vanilla extract (I use Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract)

1/3 tsp. pure almond extract

2 Tbs. Bacardi light rum (original recipe calls for brandy, which I haven’t tried yet)

85 gms (½ C.) seedless dark raisins

85 gms (½ C.) golden raisins

finely grated peel of 1 organic lemon (use a rasp for the finest consistency)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

 Sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, mace and cardamom. Stir in the almond meal. Cut the butter in with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse sand.

 In a blender, cream the egg with the softened cream cheese, vanilla, almond extract and rum. Pour it into a bowl and mix in the fruit and lemon peel. Gradually stir in the flour mixture until everything is more or less incorporated, then turn it onto a lightly floured board and knead it for a couple of minutes -- just until smooth. At first it’s more like “smooshing” or squeezing things together than kneading. It will seem dry and you might have the urge to add some liquid, but resist if you can.

Flatten into an oval about 10″ long by 8″ wide. With the blunt edge of a knife, crease it just off center, length-wise. Fold the smaller side over the larger side and form it into a slight crescent moon shape.

Bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes, or up to an hour, depending on thickness. This year I made mine a little thicker than usual and needed the full hour. Turn at 20 minutes. Watch closely after 40 minutes or so and protect it with strips of aluminum foil if it’s getting too brown at the edges. Allow it to cool before dusting it with confectioner’s sugar.

Happy New Year to all!     Janie

NOTE: The differences in my recipe from Anna Thomas’s original are:

 - I use light Bacardi rum; she uses brandy (same amount)

- I omit the candied lemon peel and substitute grated peel of 1 lemon

- I use seedless dark raisins instead of currants (same amount)

- I reduce the sugar somewhat (¾ C. is the original amount, but I usually use a well rounded ½ C.)

- I use Bob’s Red Mill almond flour if I have it available because it’s good and it’s easier than grinding blanched almonds

- I usually substitute slightly reduced fat cream cheese

Hello everyone,

I am very excited to have finally joined this forum.  I have read posts for the last month or two, and am finally joining.  I just found my passion for baking bread about 2 months ago, and I have not stopped baking since!  Every day that goes by without baking makes me sad :(.  I currently am trying to perfect a stollen recipe and am looking for tips and ideas from experienced stollen bakers!

I look forward to sharing my passion and learning from you!

Andrew

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?

I have been lurking in the forum for over two years now, soaking up all that I could about sourdough bread-baking. All this time, I wished there was something that I could give back, that I could share with the community. Seeing that I am still a bread amateur compared to you guys, I thought I will have to wait a few more years for this blessed moment. But today, as I was getting my kitchen ready for baking, it hit me. There actually is something I can share with you: my recipe and my experience with baking Dresden Christmas Stollen. I know, there is already one recipe around by harrygerman. My recipe is similar, but with even more butter and fruit. This stollen is an amazing thing: rich, heavy, and fruity. The dough is different from anything else I know and a little tricky to work with. Before I give you the recipe and the technique, I will start by telling you a little about the history of Dresden Stollen. Seeing that there are very different stollen recipes around, I think you need this little introduction to understand how the Dresden stollen is different and why it is worth making, despite all the effort.

In Saxony (the region in the East of Germany, where Dresden is), stollen has been a tradition Christmas bread for centuries (the first written documents about stollen are from the 1329). At that time, however, stollen was a light, yeasted bread, containing nothing but flour, water, yeast and sometimes oil. It was sold and eaten during he pre-Christmas period of Advent fast. Saxony was then catholic, so the use of any richer ingredients such as butter or milk was strictly forbidden. The Saxon rulers, however, were apparently dissatisfied with their Advent bread, so they applied to the pope for a permission to use butter in their stollen. The pope allowed this in 1491, on the condition that they atone for their sin by donating liberally to the church. Although meant only for the rulers and gentry, the pope's permission was quickly applied with much more liberation. Maybe to compensate for centuries of butter-free fasting, the Saxons transformed the stollen into a rich, buttery bread stuffed with fruits. No longer a fast meal, the stollen became a Christmas celebration bread. After a while Saxony turned protestant, but the stollen remained. Of course, with its centuries of tradition, the title "Dresden Stollen" was soon used for trading purposes, unfortunately not always with high-quality products. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the traditional Dresden stollen bakeries fought against the on-slough of so-called Dresden stollen. Today, "Dresdner Stollen" is a registered trademark and only selected backers from Dresden area can use it, provided that their stollen meet criteria with regard to the minimum amount of butter and dried fruits.

Enough of history, let's look at the bread. A real Dresden stollen contains at least 500g Butter and 650g sultanas per 1000g flour. This makes it extremely heavy and rich. Furthermore, the stollen is traditionally heavily coated in icing sugar. The bread needs to ripe for at least 3 weeks in order to develop its flavours and texture and keeps in proper conditions easily for several months. I have started baking stollen some ten years ago, when I moved to Dresden. I now bake 2-3 batches each year before Christmas. For my husband, stollen is something to look forward to throughout the whole year. Even when we spent six month in Finland last year, there was no questions that I will bake his beloved stollen. The recipe that I have here is based on a century old recipe for Dresden Christmas stollen, that Dresden bakeries use as a foundation. Of course, I have adapted it to suit our tastes. You are free to do the same. Just what ever you do, do not cut down the fat! Without the fat, the stollen will never keep as long and it will not develop the proper texture and taste. The same goes for the amount of fruits. You can play with the sugar though, for example leave out the sugar coat (I prefer our stollen uncoated).

Right, enough said, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1000 g flour (fine, weak flour; all purpose flour should do nicely)
250 g cream
42 g fresh yeast (or 14 g dried yeast)
500 g butter (or 450g butter and 50g lard or tallow)
1 g ground mace
0,5 g ground cinnamon
0,5 g ground cardamom
zest of 1 lemon
150 g sugar (I use Muscovado whole-cane sugar)
50 g candied lemon peel (instead I make my own by soaking peel from two lemons in honey
for several days)
150 g candied orange peel (instead, I soak peel from 4-5 oranges in honey)
500 g sultanas
250 g currants
100 g rum (optional, I use Amaretto instead)
200 g ground almonds
+ extra butter (approx. 250 g)
+ extra fine castor sugar (approx. 100 g)
+ extra icing sugar (at least 250 g)

0. Save the date
It's important not to start baking stollen too late. My personal experience with this recipe is that they need at least 4 weeks, ideally 6 weeks before you cut into them. Really! We always cut our first stollen on the first Advent Sunday, so I bake my first batch 10 weeks before Christmas. I bake my second and sometimes third batch about 5-6 weeks before Christmas, partly for us and partly as presents for friends.

0. Preferment
The stollen dough is very heavy and it will need a strong yeast activity to raise it. For this purpose, I like to preferment a portion of the flour. I take 300g of the flour, break in 21g yeast, and knead it with 250g cream. I leave it to ferment for 1 hour by room temperaure and than for 12-24 hours in the fridge. You can also use sourdough in the preferment. I have successfully baked sourdough-only stollen, you just need to let them rise longer.

0. Soaking
Place the sultanas and currents in a large bowl. If you are using alcohol, pour it over the fruit. Add enough boiling water to cover the fruit. Leave to soak for at least 30 minutes, but best over night. It is important to soak the fruit even if you are not using alcohol, or else it will burn in the oven. Don't forget to drain the fruit well before you start making the dough to make it as dry as possible.

1. Dough
I sieve the flour onto a working surface (this definitely does not work in a bowl). Break in the remaining 21g of yeast (you can leave this out, just adjust the rising time). Rub the lemon zests into the sugar and mix the sugar into the flour, together with the mace, cinnamon, and cardamom. If you are wondering about the small amounts, the stollen is not supposed to taste very spicy. However, this is your stollen, so you can add any spices you like. Cut the preferment into small pieces and distribute it on the edges of your flour mound and do the same with the butter/lard. Now comes the kneading. Be warned, that you will need about 30 minutes to knead the dough. You can try it in your mixere, but make sure your mixer can take it. Better invest the time or coax a physically strong friend or relative into helping. Start by taking a few pieces of the preferment and the butter and kneading them together. As you do this, the dough-lump in your hands will turn sticky. Place it in the middle of your flour mound and knead it there, until so much flour has been incorporated that it's dry again. Now take some more preferment and butter and knead them in your lump. This will make it sticky again, so add flour. And so on and so on. At some point, the dough-lump may become difficult to handle. Feel free to cut and put aside about two thirds of it and continue kneading with the rest. You can put the pieces together in the end. Do not be tempted into adding more flour or any liquids. Trust me, just keep kneading, it will all be well in the end. As you work, the kitchen will be slowly filled with the smell of lemon zest and the spices - Christmas is on the way!

2. Fruits
You are tired, your fingers ache and you are a proud owner of a homogeneous dough lump that reminds you of short-bread dough. Congratulations, let's add the fruit. Take your drained sultanas and currants and mix them with the ground almonds. This will help soak up the remaining liquid. Mix them with the candied orange and lemon peel and pour the whole lot on your working surface. You might have the urge to check the recipe now, because you think you have too much fruit. But it really can be incorporated into you dough-lump. First, cut the dough-lump into 5 pieces. Start by working the first piece into the fruit. As the fruit is wet, this will make it all turn into a strange paste. Keep adding piece by piece, until the whole lot is incorporated. Don't worry if you feel more like making mudpies. Place the whole mass into a bowl and clean your working surface with a dough scraper. Now evaluate the dough. Is it like a soft short-bread or cookie dough? Than you are done with it. If it's too wet and soft (probably it will be), dust the working surface with flour, turn the dough onto it and carefully work in a little more flour. Not too much, though, the dough should be just about manageable. You won't need to make anything fancy with it, so as long as it does not stick to the work surface or your hands like crazy, it's fine.

3. Divide, form, and rise
Divide the dough into 2-5 pieces. For us, I prefer to make two large stollen. This size apparently has a positive influence on the texture of the stollen later on. But you can make several smaller stollen, too, for example as gifts. Just don't forget to adjust the baking time. Form each stollen into a rough, high log. Just pat it into shape - no rolling, no stretching. Just a note here: the traditional Dresden stollen has no almond paste inside. With all the dried fruit and its sugar coat, I also think that it does not need it. But it's your stollen, so if you like, add it now. Put the formed stollen on a baking sheet with baking paper (make sure the stollen are far enough apart) and let it rise for about 2 hours (more, if you are using only sourdough or less yeast). The stollen will become a little puffy, nothing more. It will definitely not double.

4. Score and bake
There is a traditional way of forming a Dresden stollen. I use a different, simple way used for stollen from Thuringia (another region in Germany). It's easier and the stollen are less flat, so they are also moister. Basically, you just make a log and then you score it with a single cut all the away down the stollen's back. That's it. I score the stollen directly before putting it into the oven. I don't preheat the oven, just pop it in and bake it at 180°C for approx. 1-1,5 hours. Keep a watchful eye on the stollen. Cover it with aluminium foil if it has turned brown before its time and adjust the time according to the size of the stollen.

5. Coat
This is an optional step. Traditional stollen is heavily coated in sugar. If you want to  coat the stollen, brush it with liquid butter (as much as the stollen can soak up) immediately after taking it out of the oven. Than sprinkle it heavily with fine castor sugar. The castor sugar will soak up any access butter. Wait for the stollen to cool and sprinkle it with a very thick layer of icing sugar. As I wrote, I skip this step. Firstly, I find the coated stollen too sweet and secondly it makes a mess when storing. Alternatively, it is also possible to store uncoated stollen and brush it with butter and coat it in sugar right before cutting into it.

6. Store
The stollen has to be stored for at least 4 weeks (I recommend 6) before cutting into it. If you cut it earlier, you will be disappointed. Cutting it later is even better. Stollen store best in an old fashioned cool celler, with high humidity. If you don't have such a cellar, you can store stollen outside in wooden boxes provided that your climate is cool enough (that's what I do). Otherwise store the stollen in the coolest room of your house, but not in the fridge. Some people like to freeze the stollen, I don't think its necessary and it has a negative impact on the texture. If you are storing stollen in a cellar or outside, simply wrap it in cotton cloth and put it in a wooden box, so that it can breathe. Otherwise wrap it well in a plastic or aluminium foil. The idea is that if you cannot provide an environment with high humidity, such as cellar or outside, you should prevent the stollen from drying out. That's it, now wait.

7. Eating
If you cut into a stollen 2-3 weeks after baking, you will be disappointed. It will taste fine, but the crumb will be far too dry. Don't give up and put the stollen away again and wait a little longer. The texture will change over time and after six weeks it will have a short-bread-like crumb and the taste will be a mixture of spices and fruits, all rolled into a buttery, sweet bliss.

So to sum up, a Dresden stollen is not hard to bake. All it takes are good quality ingredients, some muscle and a lot of patience. The reward is a truly unusual bread. Although I am not German and grew up baking other Christmas goodies, stollen has become to me a personification of Christmas. You take the best, you do your best, you wait for the occasion, and then you enjoy it in full.

I hope someone might have a go at my Christmas stollen. I'll be happy to help you.

Best, Nella

I have been brought up on Stollen during the Christmas Holidays and to be honest, the best part was the crust of melted butter and powdered sugar.

The dough itself always tasted a bit dry - ok, the last time I ate Stollen was while East Germany was still behind the wall and Grandma might not have had all the good ingredients. 

Anyway, after reading the recent posts here re panettone, I found a great recipe in Suzanne Dunway's book "No Need to Knead".  Before I try this though, could someone tell me if the average panettone is moister than a Stollen ?   Also, where would I find the candied orange and lemon peels or Zitronat ?

Thank you all,

Anna

Hi Everybody, 

I've made the candied peel, bought  the dried fruits, and now cannot find my copy of Beard on Bread.  Can anybody share his recipe for Stollen?

It is delicious and I live in rural place with one book store that does not have this book, nor does the library.  This is one of the 

first yeast breads I even made and the flavour is heavenly.

Thanks!  My peel is waiting on the counter....

C. 

I never tasted a Stollen let alone thought I would make one! I first got the notion to bake one when I was reading a blog about French folds and hand mixing of breads. I followed the link which led me to a video by Richard Bertinet of sweet doughs (I highly recommend it for those of you that have not seen it yet) and a recipe for stollen.  I really liked the way the recipe and the finished product looked and I really was into the hand mixing technique. That would of been too easy....instead I made the mistake of Googeling Stollen. I had no idea how many different variations there are on a stollen....from Germany to Poland...they all have a little different take...the very traditional Dresdner Stollen.....another @Hefe und Mehr- german blog....and a mouth watering recipe at Bakers Süpke `s World......the one that got my attention was a chocolate stollen @Domestic Goddess in training......an American version with a German influence @Joe Pastry and a Mohn Quark Stollen which is a poppy seed and fruit stollen which I am going to try next week....eventually I found my way back to Chef Bertinet recipe with a recipe from the United Kingdom by Chef Madalene Bonvine-Hamel @British Larde. I gathered all my material together for the Stollen and e-mailed Susan at Wild Yeast with a question about osmotolerant yeast.....She said "I made the SFBI stollen in class and it is a good one!" Ok ...that would make it easy which one to choose, it is a proven recipe and I just got the book.

I read the SFBI recipe and it said add all to bowl and mix…I thought I knew better…and in the back of my head from all the post I read I thought I had to  develop the gluten before adding the ton of butter....I threw in the sponge,eggs and started to mix...the flour barely formed a ball....panic set in...I added some water...I reread the formula to make sure I didn't leave out something...and realizes that Baby Jesus threw me a curve....I should of realized it at first... most of the moisture came butter. After a good while of mixing the dough came together with a good gluten structure. I was very relieved that is was able to save it...I divided the dough in six pieces and gently spread them into ovals....I applied the filling of Creme' d'almond that Chef Bertinet used along with the cut up pieces of marzipan to the bottom layer and also applied the filling under the top fold....the stollen was finished with a drunken butter wash and plenty of sugar topping.

This is being sent to MaMa Claus @ Yeastspotting  HoHoHo....

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?    

It is Christmas time and it seems lots of people are making Stollen so here is my addition to the mix. 

I heard about Stollen recently and how good it is so I decided that I wanted to make some.  The only problem is I have never eaten or seen Stollen.  I looked in my books and on the internet for recipes for sourdough Stollen and decided to improvise and make my own.  The paragraph from Peter Reinharts's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" is very nice and I think worthy of quoting here.

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Dresden is considered the spiritual home of this traditional Christmas bread.  The bread symbolizes the blanket of the baby Jesus, and the colored fruits represent the gifts of the Magi.  As in nearly every festival bread, the story aspect of this loaf is culturally important, for it is a way parents teach their children about their heritage.

This is a bread that is soft with lots of different flavors bursting onto your taste buds with every bite.  There are exotic spices, dried fruit, nuts, and a little bit of Brandy in the bread.  The outside of the bread is painted with melted butter then covered with powdered sugar.  This really is a special bread for a festival.

Crumb 

The way I made it here on my website.