Easy Stollen

Stollen is a traditional German Christmas cake, which husband loves dearly. I had tried making it before, but found it too time-consuming and the result - underwhelming. However, last December we came upon a simplified recipe, which we liked very much and I've probably made already a dozen of these.

With every attempt I've moved slightly away from the original, so probably my version is now hardly a stollen, but who cares - it is delicious, we love it and I'd like to have it on the blog, so that I wouldn't loose the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 250 g flour
• 7 g fresh yeast
• 70 g warm milk
• 50 g melted butter
• 30 g sugar
  
• 1 egg
• 200 g dried fruit
• 25 g rum
• a pinch of salt and spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, star anise)
  

Preparation:

Put all the dry fruit in a bowl, add the rum, cover and let them sit for a few hours, preferably over night,  so that the fruit can soak up the rum.

Warm the milk and add the fresh yeast and the sugar in it. Melt the butter. Add the milk with the activated yeast, the melted butter, the egg and the spices and mix. Knead the dough until elastic and leave it to rest for a couple of hours in a warm space. In winter I put it covered in my oven with the light on.

Once the dough has doubled its size, it is time to add the dry fruit, which has soaked up the rum. Mix and knead thoroughly and leave to rest for another hour or two.

Spread the dough on a surface and flatten it into a rectangle. Fold one third of the rectangle, then fold the second third on top and press, giving the dough the traditional stollen form. I used to bake the stollen in free form on a baking tin, but lately I prefer to put it in a rectangular cake form and bake it like that. I know, it is not as per tradition, but it is easier to cut in slices.

 

Leave the stollen to rest for a final half an hour, preheat the oven at 180 C and bake until ready, for about 40 min.

Once the stollen is out of the oven, you can brush it with melted butter and cover it with powdered sugar. That is the traditional way and we do it sometimes, but frankly, I prefer it without the added sugar and usually skip the last step. 

Around Christmas I used to put candied orange and lemon peel and other Christmasy goodies in the dough, but lately it is only dried fruit of various sorts, these here are raisins, plums, dates and cranberries, a favourite combination of mine, which combines sweetness, sourness and flavour.