Christmas Stollen Wreath: DB Challenge Dec. '10

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.

Truthfully, when I first saw this month's challenge recipe I wasn't too excited.  Without reading too much of the recipe, I looked at the picture and was instantly turned off by the dessert that is highly reminiscent of fruitcake.  No one actually likes fruit cake - the token fruitcake on the holiday spread usually doesn't even get opened.  It's the gift that keeps on giving.  So, I instantly threw the idea out of my head and thought that I would get to it if there was time (which I have little of since I'm in the process of moving as I bake).  However, I mentioned it to The Biochemist, who is German, and he got SO excited.  Thus the challenge was on.

Stollen (or Weihnachtsstollen) is a traditional German Christmas bread (not fruitcake at all, actually) that contains dried or candied fruit, nuts, and often marzipan. The Biochemist is particularly fond of marzipan so I used a lot.  I also am not a huge fan of raisins, which are the primary fruit in traditional stollen along with candies citrus rinds, so I swapped them out for other dried fruits; apricots soaked in passion fruit rum, cranberries soaked in orange juice, and blueberries.   The other big difference between this stollen and a more traditional one, is the shape.  Typically the stollen is in a simple log shape but this challenge called for a wreath.   I think the wreath shape makes it a little more festive.

The recipe makes a HUGE Christmas wreath so feel free to halve it if necessary.  Also, the fruits, nuts, and marzipan quantities and varieties an easily be changed.  The flavors I used here worked really well together and I highly recommend trying them.  The stollen tasted really good with my copious amounts of marzipan and dried fruits; I think the candied fruits would have made the final product too sweet.  As I made it, it was actually not very sweet at all.

The process of baking the stollen was somewhat time-consuming but not too bad.  With the help of my Kitchenaid stand mixer, the only problem I encountered was having to add extra flour to get the dough to form into a good ball.  I was amazed at how much the dough rose in the refrigerator in the first hour.  It didn't raise much the next day during the two hour proofing, but the final product was huge so I think it must have been fine.  I will certainly make this one again...maybe I'll make it a new tradition...

---Ingredients-----------------------------------------------------------

Makes one large wreath or two traditional shaped Stollen loaves. Serves 10-12 people

¼ c lukewarm water (110º F)
2 packages (4 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 c milk
10 T unsalted butter
5½ c all-purpose (plain) flour (Measure flour first - then sift)
½ c sugar
¾ T salt
1 t cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
2 t vanilla extract
1 t lemon extract or orange extract
1 c dried blueberries
5t orange juice (front zested orange)
1 dried cranberries
5 t rum (Malibu Passion Fruit Rum)
1c dried apricots, chopped
1 c slivered almonds, toasted
marzipan (Make your own - recipe below)
Melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath
Confectioners’  sugar for dusting wreath

These flavors seem so tropical...

---Preparation-----------------------------------------------------------

Soak the fruits: In a small bowl, soak the apricots in the rum, and the cranberries in the orange juice from the zested orange, and set aside. Note: If you don’t want to use alcohol, double the lemon or orange extract or you could use the juice from the zested orange.

Make the dough:

Pour ¼ c warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.

In a small saucepan, combine 1 c milk and 10 T butter over medium - low heat until butter is melted. Let stand until lukewarm, about 5 minutes.

Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add lemon and vanilla extracts.

In a large mixing bowl (4 qt) (or in the bowl of an electric mixer with paddle attachment), stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests.

Then stir in (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment) the yeast/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

Add in the dried blueberries and cranberries, soaked apricots, and almonds and mix with your hands or on low speed to incorporate.

It seemed fitting to photograph the stollen next to a bierstein.

Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading (or mixing with the dough hook) to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. Knead for approximately 8 minutes (6 minutes by machine). The full six minutes of kneading is needed to distribute the dried fruit and other ingredients and to make the dough have a reasonable bread-dough consistency. You can tell when the dough is kneaded enough – a few raisins will start to fall off the dough onto the counter because at the beginning of the kneading process the dough is very sticky and the raisins will be held into the dough but when the dough is done it is tacky which isn't enough to bind the outside raisins onto the dough ball.

Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Put it in the fridge overnight. The dough becomes very firm in the fridge (since the butter goes firm) but it does rise slowly… the raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want.

Shaping and Baking the Wreath:

Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. 

Punch dough down, roll into a rectangle about 16 x 24 inches and ¼ inch thick.  Roll out strips of marzipan and evenly distribute them over the length of the dough.

Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder. (Marzipan strips should run from end to end.)

Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape.

Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 2-inch (5 cm) intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough.  Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap.

Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1½ times its original size.  After about 1.5 hours, preheat oven to 350°F with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes. The bread will bake to a dark mahogany color, should register 190°F in the center of the loaf, and should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

Transfer to a cooling rack and brush the top with melted butter while still hot.  Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve.  Wait for 1 minute, then tap another layer over the first.  The bread should be coated generously with the powdered sugar.  Coat the stollen in butter and icing sugar three times, since these coatings help keep the stollen fresh.  Let cool at least an hour before serving.

See the state of my kitchen post-sugar dusting.

When completely cool, store in a plastic bag. Or leave it out uncovered overnight to dry out slightly, German style.

Storage
The following is for the recipe as written and uses the 45 mls of rum and two coatings of butter and icing sugar, The more rum and the more coatings of butter and sugar you use the longer it will store.

1. Stollen freezes beautifully for about 4 months
2. The baked stollen stores well for 2 weeks covered in foil and plastic wrap on the counter at room temperature and
3. One month in the refrigerator well covered with foil and plastic wrap.

A pdf of the challenge recipe is found here.

Marzipan (I used a double batch)

---Ingredients-----------------------------------------------------------

1 scant cup ground almonds (your can use any other nut you wish)
1 scant cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 large egg white, very lightly beaten
a few drops of almond essence (optional)

---Preparation-----------------------------------------------------------

To make the marzipan mix together the icing sugar, ground almonds and the white egg and the optional essence if using. Knead until you get a soft, slightly sticky and pliable ball (add more icing sugar if needed) let rest for an hour (or overnight) well covered in plastic wrap in the fridge (it can be used immediately but it is tastier if rested for a while). When needed knead the marzipan with your hands until pliable and roll into a rope and place onto the unbaked stollen dough.

If you can get almond paste then use the paste it will give you a very smooth marzipan.

The good thing about this recipe is that the egg white is safe to eat when the stollen is baked.

Thanks Audax Artifex for the marzipan recipe

Merry Christmas!