Making stollen at home (LONG)

I made another batch of stollen today and was finally prepared to photograph the process. It's a pretty long process and I took lots of photos so I'll try to keep the babble short.

(Well, pretty short at least. While I normally post about Swedish dishes, stollen is as German as it gets. Why does it show up on our Christmas table? Because it's good!)

I'm deliberately shying away from exact measurements here as I don't dare make this without following the very-precise recipe (which I won't post due to completely understandable board restrictions). I apologize if this lack of detail makes for some strange directions. I also recommend a very powerful mixer for this dough.

The ingredients:



Salt, butter (room temperature), almonds (bitter and sweet), whole milk (this is actually non-homogenized milk with fat content somewhere between 3.8% and 4.5%), yeast (this is fresh cake yeast that is especially adapted to high sugar-content doughs), an egg (yolk), high-protein flour, almond paste (some make their own by mixing equal amounts of peeled almonds and sugar), sugar, ingredients for a spice mixture and a mixture of dried fruit, nuts and rum.

Start by getting your fruit soaking. I used peeled, sliced almonds, golden and black raisins, chopped figs, candied orange peel and candied "citron" peel.



Soak in a small (1/4 cup or so) amount of rum:



Start by making a pre-dough with the yeast, half of the flour, a pinch of sugar and the milk.

Add the dry to the wet:



Incorporate:



And mix at low speed for 10 minutes. The dough will be elastic:



Let the pre-dough rest and rise for 30 to 60 minutes or until doubled in size:



Meanwhile, make the spice paste.

Start by blanching and peeling the bitter (left) and sweet (right) almonds:



Add the almonds along with a chopped vanilla bean, some ground cardamon, nutmeg, sugar and lemon zest together to a processor...:



... and mix until it forms a smooth paste:



Dump the paste as well as the rest of the flour, some sugar, salt and an egg yolk onto the pre-dough:



Mix. This is where the mixing gets tough! Mix for a few minutes or until the pre-dough has finally incorporated the new ingredients:



Gradually add knobs of the room-temperature butter. You'll notice the dough soften and smooth:


Knead, on low for 15 minutes or until the dough is very elastic:



Add the macerated fruits and nuts and mix briefly (too much mixing will break down the softened fruit):





Let the dough relax and rise for 60 minutes.

Divide the dough into equal pieces (I made four smallish loaves today but have also made two large ones with this recipe). Divide the almond paste into equal pieces and form into cylinders:



Roll out the dough, flatten slightly in the center and lay in one piece of almond paste:



Wrap the dough over the almond paste, seal and form into a loaf. Repeat.





Place the loaves on a parchment-covered baking pan and let rise until nearly doubled in size:



Bake for about 40 minutes in an initiallly hot oven. Throw a 1/2 cup of water or so onto the over floor immediately before closing the door to create steam. Reduce the heat after 5 minutes for the remaining 35 minutes.

Remove the loaves from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Brush the still-warm loaves with butter and sprinkle with sugar:



Allow to cool completely. Before serving, process one more vanilla bean with powdered sugar and cornstarch...:



... to make vanilla sugar:



Dust (heavily) the loaf with the vanilla sugar, slice and enjoy!









(Or you could just go out and buy one...)

Hi,

You solved one of the puzzles I always had about stollen: the comingling of sugar crystals and powdered sugar. I had wondered why the sugar crystals stuck and the powdered sugar was loosely present.

FYI - powdered sugar in the United States has corn starch in it already. Is this a missing element in powdered sugar there or you just need a boost?

I never thought of making my own stollen, though this is very inspiring.

Regards,

This post is lovely, just lovely!

We were in Tag's Custom Bake Shop on Central Street in Evanston the other day and they have an interesting display of different types of stollen and fruit cakes. For each type, they display the entire loaf as well as a cut slice. There are cards that describe the ingredients of each type, some with softer fruits, some with citrus peels, etc. Each one is representative of a certain ethnic tradition.

It was the first time I have seen a stollen with almond paste inside. It really looked good. But yours looks much better!

--Joy

Hi,

This recipe for Dresdner Stollen reasonably parallels your instructions. I have a box of chunky sugar crystals I bought at Ikea a few years that would make a good first sprinkling, before the confectioner's sugar layer. The stollen I have bought in Chicago seemed to have sugar of at least three different grit levels: chunky crystals, granulated and/or fine sugar and confectioner's sugar.

Stollen is supposed to suggest baby Jesus in swaddling clothes.

I hadn't thought of making stollen until reading this post. I hope I will emulate your idea real soon.

Regards,

Thank you two for your comments!

Cathy2 - I just looked and the powdered sugar I used also has starch in it (this being Sweden, it's potato starch, though). I think that the added starch is just an extra boost to keep things dry as well as perhaps being a help when adding the slightly damp vanilla bean.

Joy - The recipe I followed says specifically that this is a Dresdner Weihnachsstollen (great guess, Cathy2!). However, I've made one (vital if you trust the recipe I have...) omission. The recipe calls for a few grams of ground tonka bean (see hidden in these two posts and here).
While these beans are not banned in Sweden, their demand is just so little as to not make them available to the public.

Go ahead and make a batch, Cathy2! You can certainly pull it off and, at the risk of sounding like Old Aunt Betty giving away her rum cakes, they seem to make an appreciated gift. I plan on giving away most of my loaves together with bottles of "Tomte Glögg".

What a nice post. So well documented and definitely helpful if I ever try my hand at doing this (yea right).

Do you post at The Fresh Loaf, by any chance?

Stollen seems like it would be really good for breakfast right about now.

Your documentary posts are always great.

What camera do you use?

Thanks for the kind words!

kanin ("kanin" means rabbit in Swedish, by the way) - I've never heard of The Fresh Loaf. I'll check it out.

brandon_w - I've just replaced my old Kodak with a Canon Powershot G9 and am extremely pleased with it.

Hi,

Just curious, how much daylight are you getting now?

I recall in Moscow at this time of year, the sun had not risen by 9 AM. I'm thinking after 10 AM, though the sun never rose very far off the horizon. By 3 PM, the sun was already fading away.

Regards,

Another informative, inspirational and beautiful post, Bridgestone. Thank you.

=R=

ronnie_suburban - Thanks! That means a lot coming from you.

Cathy2 - according to today's paper, the sun came up in Stockholm at 8:40 a.m. and went down again at 2:46 p.m. But, as you say, it is currently very low on the horizon (look at the picture of the ground spice paste again and you'll get a good idea of the long shadows noon sunshine casts right now). Practically everyone in Stockholm is currently praying for some snow and/or some freezing temps. It's been drizzly and overcast for nearly 3 weeks and the darkness gets much worse then. A little snow on the ground does wonders for making the short days and long nights seem that much lighter. One way or another, today's Lucia so the solstice is right around the corner!

Hi,

I just checked a website with sunrise and sundown for Moscow today:

Dec 13, 2007:
- Sunrise at 8:51 AM
- Sundown at 3:56 PM
Total daylight: 7h 05m 29s

Solar noon: 12:24 PM with the sun only at 11.2° - which is very low in the sky.

Just took a quick geography lesson to learn Stockholm is further north than Moscow. Otherwise I couldn't account for the extra 50 minutes of daylight.

I concur the snow does brighten and lighten the absence of daylight.

Thanks!

Regards,