I love Stöllen. I think it is extra special because we only eat it at Christmas time. I guess if we had it all the time, the magic could be lost. It was towards the end of November, a month before Christmas I decided that the time to bake Stöllen has arrived. I baked it twice for home and once for my daughter's school so far.
I was chuffed to be asked for the recipe by a couple of mothers who got to taste it.
I used to bake Stöllen with marzipan in the middle, but I realised last year that I didn't really enjoy eating the intensely sweet bit in the middle. So this year, I mixed plenty of almond flakes in the dough instead of marzipan. I much prefer it, but if you like your marzipan, there is nothing stopping you from putting some in there before the second proofing.
180ml Milk
7g Dry Yeast
410g Plain Flour170g Softened Butter
80g Brown Sugar
1 1/2 Eggs
3g Salt (if using unsalted butter, add 8g of salt)
1 tbs Mixed Spice
1 tsp Ginger Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon
125g Mixed Dry Fruit
125g Flaked Almonds
Mix all the ingredients together until well combined.
You don't have to knead it much.
Don't be alarmed, it is meant to be a sticky and messy dough.
Leave it to proof for 90 minutes.
You can either make one big Stollen or two small ones.
The bigger one takes longer to bake.
If making two small ones, divide the dough into two equal portions.
Use plenty of flour on the bench and roll each one out into a thick disk.
Fold over and let the dough proof for 60 minutes.
Bake in the preheated oven (180 degrees celsius) for approximately 30 minutes (35 minutes if baking one big stollen).
Every oven is different, so you need to see if the stollen looks nice and golden all over before you take it out of the oven.
When they are still hot, brush with a generous amount of melted butter (not included in the recipe above) all over and dust icing sugar on top.
