Stollen is a real treat. This recipe is surprisingly easy to make. It is not only moist but full of the flavours of Xmas. I do make my own marzipan but you can always use bought if you prefer. My marzipan recipe is here.
Stollen can often be dry and tasteless. The key in my recipe is to soak the fruit at least 24 hours before you want to make it. I would advocate even longer; 5-7 days if you can because the longer the better.
Step by step instructions on how to make this easy, traditional, stollen
First soak the fruit
I recommend soaking it for at least 24 hours; I have been known to soak it for a week! You can do it for shorter but it just means that the fruit hasn’t absorbed as much moisture and flavour. The longer you soak it, the more moist your stollen will be.
Make the dough
Mix all the ingredients except the fruit and nuts and knead for 8-10 mins. Cover and leave to prove.
Add the fruit and nuts
Mix in the soaked fruit and nuts and roll out into an oblong shape. Fill with the marzipan and fold over the long edges tucking in the ends. My homemade marzipan recipe is here.
Final prove
Leave the stollen to prove for about an hour
Bake and glaze
Bake the stollen for about 40 minutes then glaze with melted butter and icing sugar.
Notes
How long can you keep stollen?
Stollen will keep for up to 1 week wrapped tightly in cling film and foil or an airtight container.
Can you freeze stollen?
Yes you can. Wrap it up tightly in clingfilm and then foil. And don’t foregt to put a label on it so you know what’s inside 🙂
Can you make the stollen without marzipan?
Yes. Simply leave it out but the baking time will need to be adjusted to probably 30-35 mintues as it will be a smaller loaf.
Can you make the stollen without alcohol?
Yes. You can soak the fruit in the equivalent quantity of liquid using freshly squeezed orange juice or apple juice. Although you would need to put the soaking fruit in the fridge for the soaking period as the juice could go off.
Stollen
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 120 ml lukewarm whole milk
- 15 g fresh yeast (or 7.5g active dried or 5g fast action yeast)
- 22 g caster sugar
- 300 g plain flour
- 25 g egg
- 15 g yolk
- 85 g butter very soft
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 lemon zest
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp ground mace or nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
Inclusion
- 112 g marzipan
- 125 g raisins
- 86 g citrus peel
- 45 g blanched almonds chopped small
- 35 ml rum
Finishing
- 60 g butter melted
- icing sugar for dusting
Instructions
- If you want to make homemade marzipan, you can make it up to 6 weeks before you need it for your Stollen. My recipe for marzipan is here.
- At least 24 hours before making the stollen, several days before however is even better, place the raisins and citrus peel into a bowl and pour the rum over it. Stir to combine. Cover with clingfilm and leave to soak giving it a stir every so often during the soaking period to ensure the fruit absorbs all the rum.
- Stir the yeast (either fresh or dried that you are using) and 1 tablespoon of the sugar into the lukewarm milk until fully dissolved and set aside 10-15 minutes until it is frothy.
- Place the flour, remaining sugar, egg, egg yolks, butter, vanilla extract, lemon zest, salt, cardamom, mace and cinnamon in a stand mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook. Stir it through to evenly distribute the ingredients.
- Add the yeast and milk mixture and knead the dough for 8-10 minutes until a positive window test is achieved (when you stretch the dough, it creates an opaque window without breaking).
- Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave it in a warm place to rise until nearly doubled in size, at least 1 hour.
- Knock back the dough in the bowl then add the nuts and soaked fruit and any remaining liquid to the dough.
- Using the dough hook, knead the fruit and nuts into the dough until combined. If the dough is too wet to handle, add a little bit of flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. You may need to manually work in the fruit and nuts towards the end.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Roll it into an oval 30cm x 22cm and about 2.5cm thickness.
- Roll the marzipan into a log the length of the oval and place it into the middle of the dough.
- Fold the one side of the dough over the marzipan to cover it, then fold the other side over on top of so that the edge of it sits just left of the middle of the stollen.
- Seal the top and bottoms ends of the stollen to cover the marzipan by pinching and tucking the dough.
- Using the side of your hand press down along the length of the stollen to the right of the centre close to the marzipan log to create a divot and characteristic hump typical of stollen loaves.
- Place the stollen on a lined baking sheet. Cover it loosely with cling film (sprayed with non-stick spray if you have some but not essential) and leave it to prove in a warm place for 40-60 minutes until risen and almost doubled in size.
- Remove any raisins that are sticking out of the dough as they will burn during baking and won’t be nice to eat.
- Preheat the oven to 180C and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden or an internal temperature of 87C is reached. You may need to turn the baking sheet half way through baking to ensure it bakes evenly all round.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray. Then while it is still warm, generously brush the stollen with the melted butter.
- Following on immediately, using a sieve, dust a generous amount of icing sugar onto the stollen then rub in the icing sugar into the creases and down the sides.
- Place the stollen onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. It may need another dusting of icing sugar once cooled.
- The stollen can be eaten at this point or it will keep for up to 1 week if wrapped well in cling film and foil. It can also be frozen; again ensure it is tightly wrapped before doing so.
Hi Shirley
I’d like to try this recipe. However, do you know how much dried/fast action yeast I could use instead of fresh yeast?
Thanks
Wendy
Hello Wendy. Thank you for your question. The conversion I use is 10g fresh yeast = 5g ‘active dried’ yeast = 3g ‘fast action’ yeast. In the case of this recipe then you would need to use 7.5g active dried or 5g of fast action yeast. Follow the recipe instructions as if using fresh yeast, i.e. dissolve it in the lukewarm milk with the sugar. I hope that helps? Let me know how you get on 🙂