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Christmas Stollen Recipe
The other day I was invited to the Park Hyatt Hotel Zurich along with a group of bloggers to meet with pastry chef Tilo Herber and make our very own Christmas Stollen.
Tilo told us about the origins of the cake and that the original recipe comes from Dresden in Germany. Unlike a British Christmas Cake this cake doesn’t need to be made way in advance and “fed” with brandy, and instead of baking powder it uses yeast to make it rise. Tilo took us through all the steps and we had a really fun afternoon.
When making Stollen you actually need to weigh out ingredients for 2 separate doughs – the dough and the pre dough. The pre-dough contains the yeast and is similar to a bread dough and the dough itself it more like a cake mixture – except there are no eggs!
Ingredients for Pre Dough
- 115g flour
- 45g yeast
- 5g sugar
- 65 g milk
Method
- Warm milk to approximately 40° and then dissolve the yeast in it.
- Mix all the ingredients together and knead to form a dough.
- Leave the dough covered with a tea towel in a warm place for approximately 30 mins to rise.
Ingredients for Main dough
- 230g flour
- 45g sugar
- 100g butter
- 30g clarified butter
- 55g milk
- pinch of salt
- 310g sultanas
- 30g chopped almonds
- 30g candied orange peel
- 15g candied lemon peel
- 2g mace, finely ground
- 40g rum – use Stroh rum for better flavour !
- 5g vanilla
Method
- Marinate dry fruits and rum overnight.
- Add all main dough ingredients (except the fruits and spices) to the pre dough and mix together.
- Roll it out and then add marinated fruits and spices.
- Knead the dough carefully until it is all well mixed.
- Cover it again and leave for another 60 minutes.
- Form the round dough into a long roll of even thickness, approx 30cm long.
- We like marzipan so we made an indentation lengthwise across the dough to add a small length of marzipan to the Stollen. Then you roll one piece of the dough over to seal the marzipan inside. The addition of marzipan is optional.
- Leave the dough to sit for another 45 mins.
- Place in preheated (180°) oven and bake for approximately 45 mins. Add a bowl of water to the oven for the first 15 minutes as this helps it develop a crunchy crust.
- After baking brush the stollen with melted butter and coat with granulated sugar.
- Shortly before serving dust generously with icing sugar.
Enjoy your Stollen and have a wonderful festive season!
The Park Hyatt Hotel runs regular cooking courses on Stollen – for more information see here.
Other cake and tart recipes you might like to view:
Easy Lemon Tart
