Christstollen - German Christmas Cake

1 kg / 2 lbs / 8 cups flour
some extra flour for dusting the raisins

2 pck. / about 14g / dry yeast (if you can get a hand on fresh yeast use the fresh one!!! you'll need approx. 50g fresh yeast for this recipe)

375 ml / 1 1/2 cup milk, luke warm
100g / 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
peel of 1 lemon
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1/2 tsp salt
400g / 14 oz unsalted butter
200g / 6 2/3 oz raisins
300g / 10 oz almonds - half ground, half chopped
80g / 2 2/3 oz finely chopped candied lemon peel
40g / 1 1/3 finely chopped candied orange peel
40ml -50ml / 3-4 tbsp white rum

Topping:
150g / 5 1/4 oz unsalted butter
150g / 1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar (more if desired)


All ingredients should be at room temperature!
Soak the raisins in rum. Put the flour in a bowl and make a little swale in the middle. Add the yeast and most of the luke warm milk. Stir in a little flour from around, mix and let the sponge stand for 15 min.
In another bowl combine butter, sugar, vanilla sugar, eggs and salt. Using an electric mixer, whisk until frothy. Add the butter mixture, almonds, finely chopped candied lemon and orange peel and the finely rubbed off lemon zest to the flour and the sponge. If necessary add the rest of the milk. Mix well and knead very well. Drain the raisins very well. Save the rum. In a small bowl mix a little bit of flour and the raisins and mix until all the raisins are covered with flour.
This prevents the raisins to sag on the bottom of the Stollen. Add the raisins and the rum, kneading again. The dough must be very smooth, elastic and soft! Cover the bowl with a dish cloth. Let the dough rest and rise for 2 hours in a warm place.

On a floured workspace bring the dough into the typical stollen shape:
Slightly roll out the dough into a rectangle with thick bulging
edges on the long side. Flap the long sides on top of each other and pressing lengthwise with both hands to shape the typical stollen.
Put on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper, cover and let rise for another hour.
Bake the Christstollen at 175 C / 350 F for at least an hour or until a tester comes out clean when inserted. Cover the stollen with aluminum foil if it gets to dark.
Put on a wire rack. Melt the butter. Brush the still warm stollen with the melted butter and thickly sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Let cool completely. Wrap in aluminum foil and than in a plastic bag. Let the Christstollen rest for 1 Week in a cool place. Do not refridgerate!!!!!!!
During the week resting time all the flavors can develop.

Before serving dust again with confectioner's sugar and cut into slices about 1/2 inch thick.

Christstollen is a very popular cake in Germany during Advent and Christmas. It originated around 1400 AD in Dresden/Saxony.

Enjoy

Iris

mmmm, LECKERRRRRR!!!
I could almost smell the wonderful aroma of butter and almonds as I read the recipe, I don't think we will wait until Christmas time to test this recipe!!
Danke vielmals Iris, you rock!!

My pleasure!!

and now.. for Urmaniac... tha translation..

Marzipanstollen

500g flour
40g yeast
1/8 l Milk
180g butter
some salt
70g sugar
2 tblsp Vanillinsugar
125g ground almonds
125g candied lemon peel

for the filling:
vanillin
300g Marzipan
100g sugar
1 egg
80g chopped almonds
3cl Orangenliqueur

for the topping:
100g butter
50 confectioners sugar

first prepare the Marzipanfilling.Mix the Marzipan with sugar, egg, almonds, vanillin and the liqueur. Let rest for 1h.

Put the flour in a bowl and make a little swale in the middle. Add the yeast and most of the luke warm milk. Stir in a little flour from around, mix and let the sponge stand for 15 min.
In another bowl combine butter, sugar, vanilla sugar, eggs and salt. Using an electric mixer, whisk until frothy. Add the butter mixture, finely chopped candied lemon and the almonds to the flour and the sponge. If necessary add the rest of the milk. Mix well and knead very well

On a floured workspace bring the dough into the typical stollen shape:
Slightly roll out the dough into a rectangle with thick bulging edges on the long side.
add the Marzipan Mixture in a string(?) on the middle. Flap the long sides on top of each other and pressing lengthwise with both hands to shape the typical stollen.

Put on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper, cover and let rise for another hour.
Bake the Christstollen at 175 C / 350 F for at least an hour or until a tester comes out clean when inserted. Cover the stollen with aluminum foil if it gets to dark.
Put on a wire rack. Melt the butter. Brush the still warm stollen with the melted butter and thickly sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Let cool completely. Wrap in aluminum foil and than in a plastic bag. Let the Christstollen rest for 1 Week in a cool place. Do not refridgerate!!!!!!!
During the week resting time all the flavors can develop.

(I stole the rest from Iris )

Thanks Soooo Much Cara, for taking the time to translate this. You are too kind!! Now we are set for the weekend project...

did it work?

Yes it did!! Well, so far so good, I shouldn't speak too quickly, it is always a jinx... We made this Sunday, and it is resting and seasoning itself, we are waiting like a patient dog for a week just as you guys suggested, so we haven't either tasted it or even looked how it is inside!!


On the outside though it looks just like a proper Stollen, not bad, isn't it??


http://www.discusscooking.com/attac...200597_0_99700f154af5175de7fdea2aa8565681.jpg

licia, that looks really good... couldn´t do it better!!!

Inside of my Stollen revealed!!



Finally, finally we got to slice our stollen!! The only flaw was it was a bit on the dry side, maybe we left it in the oven a little too long or should have covered it with the foil a little sooner... surely it would have been more moist if we could have used some marzipan!! But the flavour was right on, still very delicious!! Was worth the wait!!

Thanks Cara
I really like the filling for this one. An improvement, on my plain marzipan idea.

Mel