December - Stollen

Well, I'm not going to lie and tell you I was excited to be making Stollen. We made it in culinary school and it was just this gross stale bread. Which my chef, who was from Austria, assured us it was supposed to be. They have crazy ideas over in Europe - who wants to eat stale bread!?

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

At school we made the Stollen with the strip of Marzipan down the middle using the traditional loaf shape. I went along with the wreath formation to try something different.

Sadly, I had no rum at work. And my boss was sick so I couldn't make him go to the liquor store and get me some. So, I soaked my raisins in orange juice. On the upside, my boss has had a store of mixed peel in the freezer pretty much forever, so any recipe that uses mixed peel is a-ok in his books! Anyway, I mixed up my bread and tossed it in the fridge to sit until the next day.

The next day I took my bread out first thing and let it warm up. When I got around to it, I rolled it out - it rolled out much easier than most bread. Probably from all that gluten formation from all the kneading! It wasn't hard at all to get the bread into the wreath shape! I shaped it, cut it, and threw it in my proofer! When it was ready to go, I baked it and it baked up lovely! When it came out, I dusted it with a ridiculous amount of icing sugar and it was ready!

I decided to just slice it up and wrap up the slices so the residents at the retirement home could have some in their coffee room. I gave a piece to my co-worker to try and she declared it delicious and said it tasted just like hot cross buns. So, I put my bread out and it was gone very quickly!

My summary would be that I'd rather not make Stollen very often. It's a very involved bread and I personally am not a huge fan. But it was a good challenge and was a great treat for the residents at the retirement home! They certainly enjoyed it!

Now, pictures!

Ahh, here's my favourite kitchen tool - my microplaner! I don't know how I ever zested citrus fruit before!
Here's my rolled out dough. Wasn't difficult at all to get it this thing, which was great!


My wreath prior to proofing! The ends didn't really pinch together, so I just made that spot another "cut."

Out of the oven and covered in icing sugar!


A slice showing the innards! I actually quite liked the spiral pattern that showed up due to the way the dough was shaped.