Christmas German Stollen - comments please?

[Mel!]

Hello everyone.

I am baking a German style Christmas stollen. I will describe it, and if anybody has any comments, or suggestions for improvement, please post them here.

It will be yeast and white flour, and dried appricots which i will soak in orange and rum liquer i made last year, sugar and cinimen(excuse spelling). In the center will be a sausage shaped piece of marzipan, so when sliced, there will be a round piece of marzipan, in the middle of each slice.
On the top, i will put a caramel and or burn butter glazing, which i saw in another thread, on this forum.

Mel

 

[XeniA]

I'm sure it will be lovely. How could it be anything else with marzipan?!

Do you have a recipe you're modifying? Can you post it?

 

[philso]

yes, please post recipe.

 

[Mel!]

I dont have an actual recipe. Like most dishes, i only loosely follow receipes, and sometimes just make up the receipes myself.
I am trying to copy the stollens they sell in the bakeries here, at Christmas. Maybe, even add my own touches.
I think butter would also be good, in the stollen. I will mix it in with the flour yeast, fruit, alchol and sugar and cinnemon. Like making pastry. Then i will add warm water, until i can form one lump, like when making bread. Then into a warm oven 50C, for an hour or more, until it hopefully doubles in size.
Then i will flatten it a little, so i can roll the marzipan up inside it.
Then bake at 220C, same as i do with bread, until it looks baked.
Then, while still hot, i will put the glaz on. In the bakeries, they usually just coat the stollens in powder sugar, but i think a glaze might be nicer.
Well, that is how i think they are made, but if anybody has suggestions, for improvement, just go ahead and post them.

Mel

 

[urmaniac13]

I made mine with the help of my German connection on this forum, Cara and Floridagirl and it came out really good, better than the one we buy from Lidl!! Here is the thread and detailed recipe.

I think good butter, marzipan and resting time are some of the keys.

 

[philso]

yuramaniac13 - great link above. gonna go for this one for sure! thanks

 

[Mel!]

Thanks Urmaniac!!!!

Mel

 

[urmaniac13]

You're welcome guys!! Hope you will enjoy it... worth every bit of effort!!


Froehliche Weihnachten!!

 

[philso]

i went ahead with floridagirl's stollen recipe in urmaniac13's link above, although i made a few minor changes due to having or not having some ingredients at hand. it's quite good! heartily endorsed!

the minor alterations i made were in the fruit and almond paste departments.

i keep a large glass jar (about 1/2 gallon?) of dried fruits soaked in brandy that i use for fruitcakes, panettone, etc. it generally has about equal amounts of candied lemon peel, candied orange peel, dried cranberries and vine fruits like sultanas or currants. from time to time other fruits like pineapple, papaya or mango, persimmon, etc. creep in. i used about a pound of soaked fruit in all.

although i had almonds on hand, being the lazy kind of guy i am, i didn't feel like getting out the grinder and bringing some sugar to the softball stage to make almond paste for the middle. nor did i feel like taking the train for an hour and a half one-way to get some. what i did use was some pecans to go into the dough, and some marron glace (candied chestnuts)which i had just been given, for the center. mooshed (sorry for the obscure technical term) between the fingers, the texture is quite similar to almond paste. this was a great hit, as substitues go.

i was thinking that the recipe would make 2 stollen, but i wound up with 3 large ones.

therefore, i was forced to start in on one while it was still warm from the oven.
wow!

 

[urmaniac13]

I am glad your stollen came out as a success!! Although marzipan (almond paste) is one of the typical and essential ingredients for a stollen, your improvisation sounds interesting, I particularly like the marron glaces idea! yum!!

As for us, a friend of ours found a fledgling german chef for her boyfriend when she went to Germany this past summer and brought him back to Rome. He is still here and made us a wonderful hunk of stollen... lucky us!!

 

[Aria]

philso and urmaniac13, Thank you, thank you.....I have made copy of the Christmas Stollen for future use. I made the Cantuccini recipe you gave me...Buon. Molto Buon. Thanks again.

 

[Mel!]

Hello Philso and Happy New Year

That chestnut idea sounds like an interesting variation. I will certainly keep it in mind, for future stollens, if i find some candied chestnuts. I presume u bought them, and did not candy them, yourself?

Mel

 

[philso]

happy new year to you too, mel.

actually, someone had just given me a box, which is why i didn't bother making marzipan. i think i like it better than using the traditional marzipan.

if for some reason you need or want to make them, making the marzipan is much faster. grind the blanched almonds. bring about an equal amount of sugar (don't quote me on the ratio;look it up) with some water to the softball stage. knead the almond mass and sugar together. probably around an hour's work.

to candy chestnuts, cook in a simple syrup (maybe with a little vanilla bean) until the chestnuts are soft. let them cool in the syrup and sit for a day or two. after that, you repeat the following process: take out the chestnuts and reduce the syrup by cooking maybe 5 or 10 minutes. return the chestnuts and let sit another day or two. i think this would be repeated until the sugar gets to about the soft ball stage.

if i were to try a lazier approach, i might cook the chestnuts in the syrup until soft, remove them, bring the sugar to a bit less than the softball stage, return the chestnuts, and just let them sit for a couple of weeks. if you're into home canning, putting them up in a very heavy syrup and letting them sit for a couple of months might give you a nice product, too.

thinking about it, i bet you could just try making a chestnut marzipan, just substituting the chestnuts for the almonds. i might even give this a try sometime.

 

[Mel!]

Hello Philso

I have not looked at this thread, for around a week, with Christmas being over.

Thanks very much for the marzipan and candied chestnut making instructions. I am going to use one of them, for my next Christmas stollen. I would like to make my own marzipan, because I can put raw cane sugar in it, which I like to use as much as possible, instead of white sugar.

Mel