Stollen is one of the most famous of the German Christmas breads. It is made in the autumn and put down to rest for several weeks before you can start eating is at first advent.
Stollen
Stollen will last for months, like English Christmas cake, as it is well preserved by all the high proof rum or brandy. It does not taste alcoholic at all, the alcohol is merely a preservative.This amazing recipe makes 4 stollens, all about 800 grams – enough for the winter! I do not use marzipan in my stollen, but plenty of people do. Marzipan is optional.
Equipment
- bowls, spoons, scale, baking trays, non stick baking parchment, aluminium foil, scrapers, little sieve for sprinkling icing sugar
Ingredients
The "soaker"
- 800 g Raisins
- 240 g Slivered or "matchstick" almonds
- 100 g Candied peel
- 240 ml Rum or brandy (as high an alcohol content as you can find as this preserves the stollen)
The "pre dough"
- 5 g Instant yeast or 10 g dry yeast or 20 g fresh yeast
- 260 ml Milk, heated to just below boiling point and let cool completely Heat up 300 and then measure out the 260. Milk has a habit of disappearing when it's heated
- 10 g Sugar
- 200 g White wheat plain flour
The "main dough"
- 800 g White wheat plain flour
- 130 g Sugar
- 100 g Lard you can substitute butter if you prefer
- 260 g Butter you can substitute lard if you want to
- 20 g Salt
- 2 Lemons Grated zest only
The decoration
- 240 g Melted butter
- 4 tbsp Vanilla sugar you can buy this or you can make this by putting a vanilla pod into a container of sugar a week before you want to bake
- 16 tbsp Icing sugar/confectioners sugar
Optional
- 500 g Marzipan
Instructions
- Make the soaker and let it sit, covered on the counter for 12-24 hours.
- After the soaking time has elapsed, make the pre-dough a big bowl by whisking together the pre-dough ingredients and letting them sit, covered for at least one hour.
- Add the main dough ingredients to the pre dough and knead well for 10 minutes by hand or by machine on the lowest setting, and let rest for 30 minutes, covered. It is a dry dough so you just need to persevere.
- Add the soaked fruit and nut mix into the bowl and then incorporate it into the dough by squishing, folding, kneading, pleading, begging, picking it off the floor, and "chopping" it in gently with a dough scraper. You have been warned. Make sure your floor is clean as the raisins tend to jump onto the floor. Do not do this in the mixer as you will squish the raisins into brown smears.
- Let it rest for two hours, covered. It will not exactly rise, there is too much fruit for that, but it will become a bit puffier.
- Pull the dough out onto a counter that is not floured and, using a knife or scraper, divide it into four equal pieces.
- Gently stretch/pat each piece into a rectangle about the size of a piece of A4/81/2 x 11" paper. It should be about about 2.5 cm/1 inch thick. At this point, if you are adding marzipan, shape it into thin sausage, no more than 1 inch/2.5 cm in diameter and lay it down the middle of each square. Fold the right-hand edge of the dough square 2/3 of the way over the dough (and over the marzipan if you have added it) and then fold the left-hand edge all the way over the dough to the right-hand edge. Like folding a piece of A4 paper (81/2 by 11") for an envelope.
- Cut four rectangles of non stick parchment that are twice as wide and ten centimeters (3-4 inches) longer than each piece of shaped stollen. This parchment will be what you use to move the stollen around. It is too fragile, when it comes out of the oven, to pick up without this support.
- Place each stollen on a separate rectangle and then place them all on a baking tray, with plenty of space between them.
- Cover the loaves with a tea towel and let the loaves rest while you heat the oven to 250 centigrade. Put the stollen in and immediately reduce the heat to 180 C.
- Bake for 50 minutes. After 30 minutes cover them with huge sheet of baking parchment to prevent the raisins from burning.
- Remove them from oven and immediately place each loaf carefully on a cooling rack. Brush them with half of the melted butter. Sprinkle each one with one tablespoon of vanilla sugar. Use a tiny sieve to sift 1 tablespoon of icing sugar over each one then dribble on 125 g more butter. I really do mean dribble. You cannot brush on this last coating of butter or you will brush away the sugar. So, dribble with a spoon. Then, sift the remaining icing sugar over the tops of all of them.
- Let these cool completely (this takes a few hours).
- Tear four huge pieces of wax/greaseproof/parchment. Place one stollen (using the parchment it is sitting on to move it) in the middle of each piece and wrap them up well. Then, wrap them tightly in aluminium foil. Store in a cool dry place for 4-6 weeks before eating.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Hi- I baked 4 stollen last year- 1st lot were slightly burned but delicious (didn’t realise re fan assisted ovens needing a lower temperature bake) 2nd 2 -fantastic & we have 1/2 left nearly a year on & its even better! making them earlier this year! Thanksx
yay! I am so pleased. Thank you for writing!
Tomorrow I am going to shop for all the required ingredients and this year we will have our very first own home made stollen! I’m a born and bred Namibian who lives in South Africa now, so I usually only get these German delights when I go home or when my mom visits us – last year December I travelled with a small suitcase full of stollen after a short visit home before Christmas (we had stollen till about Easter!)
I discovered stollen imported from Germany yesterday at a local shop but after paying a small fortune for it I was was left rather disappointed, yet totally inspired to find the best stollen recipe and make my own this year.
Thank you im advance for the detailed recipe and tips and tricks shared in the cimments as well! I will let you know how it went 🙂
Here’s to the baking gods being kind to me and my stollen 🙂
Thank you for contacting us! If you are in RSA you may find your flour is really dry. Although this dough is stiff (and squeezing in the fruit takes PATIENCE and lots of bending to pick raisins off the floor) it should not be dry. You may find you need to add more liquid. First thing (if you need to) is drain the fruit and catch the liquid. Add that (it’s booze, why waste it). If that is not enough, add water, bit by bit but just until you can work the dough. It’s not an easy knead – but as above it should not be dry! Good luck! We made ours last week.
It’s time! Soaking my fruit today. Off to work out of town for the week. Saturday, I’ll put the recipe together.
I usually keep a stock of dried fruit soaking in rum or brand or port (usually a mix of the three with the rum & brandy predominating the mix). I was 400 grams short. Hence, my soak today with finishing it up Saturday.
I think one of these might make nice family present for my new in-laws.
My dried fruit mix is non-traditional. Some raisins, golden raisins, apricots, cherries, chopped plums… I nearly chopped up some pecans as I’m short of almonds. I did have a package of ground almonds, so that will do nicely.
For the vanilla sugar, are you using granulated or bakers sugar there? The 125g of butter is that per loaf? Or per batch?
Dear Suz, that sounds wonderful! WIth slightly different fruit (that absorbs liquid at a different rate) you may need to add a bit more liquid to the dough. Water will do. Not a lot – the dough is REALLY stiff – but enough to be able to knead it! I use granulated sugar (just stick a vanilla pod in a bag of sugar and leave it there for a while and you have marvellous vanilla sugar) and the 125 g is for the recipe. so divide that among the loaves you make!
Thanks for advising. The fruits that have been soaking a while are quite plump.
I forgot to add salt! My fruit is added & I was just about to shape the loaves when I noticed I’d forgotten the salt. What to do? Knead it in, let it rest, throw away VERY expensive dough, carry on regardless? 🙁
Hi, Grwat recipe which I and most of the family actually prefer to my own!
However some family members cling onto the past so I make mine for them. Here is my question:
My recipe uses all butter rather than lard and (horror of horrors) a small egg! Fruit mix is slightly different but still steeped in booze (mix of brandy and rum) and has rum infused marzipan. Do you think it would keep as well as yours and should I let it mature? In the past I have frozen them immediately on cooling.
Thank you and a Merry Christmas.
Hi there, and thanks for this. There are a million stollen recipes – some have egg and some don’t. As long as there is enough booze of a high enough proof it will certainly be fine. Maturation is a function of the dough. This recipe simply cannot be cut until it has matured. It it too fragile until at least 4 weeks have gone by. Yours may be firm enough to cut straight away? Freezing also works but if there is enough booze, there is no need!
Mine turned out quite lovely. We are enjoying this treat. I almost forgot about it (like my mother and the freezer fruit salad!). Glad I remembered it.
Just lovely.
How marvellous!
I have been looking for an authentic stollen recipe for years and came upon this one about 6 weeks before Xmas! Perfect timing, thanks so much.
I made 1/4 of the recipe and it came out as I hoped, a mixture of a pastry and a bread. I loved the traditional folding technique. The conversion chart someone provided was helpful. Next year I will be making the full recipe. Thanks again.
I was wondering if I could make this up to 3 months before Christmas? If so, would I leave it in a cool box/ or tin for a few weeks to absorb all the goodness and then freeze it?
I have heard that some German cooks make this in the summer and then store until Christmas.
I’m out of town from October 1 – December 1, so making Stollen on Dec 1 probably wouldn’t be as good.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Dear Donna
Typically you do make this in September so you are well in time. There is no need to freeze it. Wrap it up in wax paper/greaseproof paper and tin foil and put it in a tin. It will keep perfectly until Christmas. Making it on 1 December will be impossible!
Do you recommend making the stollen in kitchenaid mixer with a dough hook instead of mixing by hand?
You can absolutely do that – it will be hard work for the mixer and just add enough liquid to make it come together in order to get the machine to knead it. I would not (sadly) knead in the fruit by hand. It may kill your machine! More important it may squash the fruit to death. However, it will certainly be easier!
Looks ace, but do i have to do the butter and suger outside coating??
Hi there, no you do not. However, they are a bit plain if you don’t!
Hi
I think i might cover it in vanilla sugar when warm and lots of icing sugar, maybe just leave the butter bit off.
Thank you!
You will need a think coating of butter or oil to make the sugar stick! Otherwise it will just all fall off!