The Cottage Smallholder

I love Stollen. When Mildred sent me her recipe I was delighted. This sounds so good I just had to put it on the blog. I will be making this with my mum when I have a few days off over Christmas.

Mildred wrote
“Have you ever made Stollen I wonder? The recipe in Andrew Whitley’s ‘Bread Matters’ book is superb! I tweaked it a bit and the resulting Stollen is wonderful! Andrew’s recipe has made a nice sized loaf and every step was explained very well. Everything I have made from this fantastic book has worked perfectly!

Here’s my ‘take’ on his recipe. It differs in that I use all white flour and add some mixed spice, and a few cherries for some festive ‘red’. We both roll the marzipan so it is distributed through the roll instead of a heavy sugary dollop through the middle, I was surprised how much more I enjoyed it like this.

Mix the fruits up the night before:

Pop 70g Sultanas, 60g Raisins, 50g Mixed peel, 30g chopped glacé cherries and 20g Brandy in a strong poly bag and leave to soak, shaking up a bit from time to time, if you remember.

The next day, make the Dough:

Place 5g sugar, 5g fresh (or dried, a little less) yeast and 60g warm milk in a bowl and stir together until dissolved, add 50g Strong White bread flour. Mix together well. Cover and leave in a warm place for about an hour until the ‘sponge’ has risen and then dropped a little.

Add to the sponge mix, when it is ready, 30g sugar (I used castor throughout), 110g Strong White Bread flour, 1 beaten egg and 50g soft salted butter.
Mix well to combine then knead for about 10 minutes. It will feel a little sticky, this is ok!

Leave to prove for about an hour until well risen.

Meanwhile, make the Marzipan:

Simply mix together 60g ground almonds, 20g castor sugar, 20g icing sugar and 20g of beaten egg to form a paste, pop this in a poly bag in the fridge.

To make the Stollen Dough:

Tip the mixed fruits into the bowl of risen dough and carefully fold/mix it in with a good pinch of mixed spice, don’t overdo the mixing or the fruits will break up! Relax the dough for 10 minutes while you roll out the cold marzipan to about a 20cm x 15cm rectangle. Roll the dough a bit bigger then place the marzipan on top of the dough and roll up like a Swiss roll, firmly with the join ending up underneath.

Place on a tray with baking parchment and brush the Stollen roll with some beaten egg (I used the leftover from the marzipan).

Cover with a large bowl and leave to rise in a warm place.

When it has proved, pop it in the oven (180c/160c fan). I left the glass bowl OVER the Stollen for the first 15 minutes of baking (like I would my bread, you need to ensure you use an oven proof bowl in this case). You do not have to do this, all I can say is though it helped the dough rise a little more and stopped it getting a hard crust which I personally didn’t want. I removed the bowl then carried on baking for about another 30 minutes, covering it with some tinfoil towards the end so it didn’t over brown.

Remove from the oven and place it on a cooling tray and brush over with melted butter. When cool sieve some icing sugar over it (or when you are ready to serve it). It won’t keep really fresh for long, (unlike the ‘bought’ varieties which are full of preservatives!). It is so scrumptious it is unlikely to hang around for very long either! You can freeze it, slice it first if you like. It is also lovely toasted.

What a wonderful gift it would make! Or to use instead of Christmas Cake!”