Friends and family were doing a lot of baking over Christmas and New Year. There were lots of lovely seasonal offerings as well as well some new innovative dishes. A great Asian inspired duck salad springs to mind from Doctor Rosemary – and will feature soon on this blog.
This blogger is very keen on any form of baking which involves yeast. Bread, brioche, Danish pastries, croissants, I love making them all. I haven’t tried making stollen yet and find the store bought version rather sweet and stodgy.
This festive season friend and colleague Ruth L made stollen for New Year’s Day 2016 and I am very pleased to present her recipe and her lovely photos.
Wikipedia says: ” Stollen is a cake like fruit bread made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Candied orange peel and candied citrus peel, raisins and almonds and different spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs, vanilla, other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan may also be added to the dough. The finished bread is sprinkled with icing sugar.”
Here is Ruth’s Stollen:
Ingredients
200g
sultanas, currants
110g cherries, and citrus peel
110g
dried cranberries
125ml
dark rum
2 x 7g
sachets dried yeast
75g
sugar
185ml
warm milk
350g
plain wholemeal flour
150g
plain flour
1½tsp
ground cinnamon
½ tsp
ground ginger
1
large free-range egg, lightly beaten
200g
butter
1 orange, zested
1
lemon, zested
250g homemade marzipan*
100g melted butter
50g icing sugar
50g flaked almonds to decorate
Method
Combine all dried fruits, and rum in a cover bowl to soak for at least 24 hours.
To make dough, combine yeast, 1 tbsp caster sugar and milk in a small bowl. Set aside for 10 minutes or until mixture bubbles.
When ready mix flour, remaining 55 g caster sugar, spices, 200 g butter, egg and the yeast mixture until mixture just starts to come together. This should be knead into a smooth and elastic dough it could take 20 minutes by hand or 7 minutes in a machine with a dough hook. Place in a greased bowl, cover and set aside in a warm place for 1½ hours or until dough doubles in size.
Knock back, stir in the soaked dried fruit(don’t add the left over rum if you think it will make the mixture to wet) as well as the orange and lemon zests into the dough. Knead until just combined. Place back in a greased bowl, cover and set aside in a warm place for a further 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide into 2. Roll each portion out to a 30cm x 22 cm rectangle. Divide the marzipan in half and roll each piece into a 25cm log. Place each piece in the centre of each rectangle and roll up dough to enclose the marzipan.
Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper, cover and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes or until slightly risen.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, bake until loaves are golden brown approx 40 mins. From the oven brush with the 100g of melted butter and cover with icing sugar press in a handful of flaked almonds to each loaf.
Cool completely then wrap each stollen in plastic or store in an airtight container for 2 days before eating.
*Marzipan recipe
Ingredients
90g caster sugar
140g icing sugar
220g ground almonds
1 orange
1 free-range egg
Method
Mix the caster sugar, icing sugar and ground almonds together in a large bowl, then stir in the orange zest and beaten egg and mix again until the ingredients are well combined and have come together as a thick paste.
Turn out the paste onto a work surface lightly dusted with icing sugar, then knead until smooth. Roll the marzipan into a ball, then wrap in cling film and chill until needed.
The Quirk and the Cool 