Traditional Christmas Stollen Recipe

December 17, 2009 by Mansi

Everyone bakes Cakes and Cookies for Christmas, but there are certain traditions that are celebrated by only a few, and one such custom is to bake the traditional Christmas Stollen, or “Christollen“, as it is widely known. A Stollen is a loaf shaped fruitcake, powdered with icing sugar on the outside. The cake is usually made with chopped candied fruit and/or dried fruit, nuts and spices. Stollen is a traditional German cake, usually eaten during the Christmas season. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs, vanilla, other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan may also be added to the Stollen dough.

Recipe & photo courtesy of Deeba from Passionate About Baking

The Dresden Stollen, which is what we describe below, is by far the most celebrated Stollen Recipe of all times! So bake this traditional bread, and celebrate Christmas in the old-fashioned way!

Christmas Stollen (Dresden Stollen)

Ingredients:
500g AP flour
2tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
200g Sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
4 drops sweet almond extract
1 tbsp Rum
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 eggs
175g butter
250g “Quark” (I make my own. Link here)
100g dried currants
100g raisins
100g dried craisins
50gm candied ginger/orange peel
Zest of 1 orange
150g ground almonds

For the icing:
50g butter
50g powdered sugar

Method
Method:
Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, almond meal, cardamom & nutmeg in your processor & give it a whiz.
Add chilled grated butter & process till you have breadcrumbs.
In a bowl whisk together quark, eggs, almond extract, rum (if using).
Add wet ingredients to flour mix and stir together until all the dry ingredients are moistened, and start to come together into a ball of dough, sticky but workable.
Knead on a well-floured work surface, adding just enough extra flour until it forms a nice, soft, smooth but not sticky dough.
Preheat the oven to 250°C. Bake it for 45 minutes at 180°C and then for another 15 minutes at 160°C.

The Frosting
As soon as the Stollen is done brush melted butter onto the hot Stollen and dust it with the powdered sugar.

Dig right in, and enjoy the spirit of an age-old Christmas tradition! Check out some more German recipes.