Food is love.  Make food and gift it at Christmas – it’s a gift of love.  

This blog is about making stollen, a lovely brioche type dough with fruit, nuts and marzipan.  It comes from Saxony in Germany and has brothers, sisters and cousins in many European food traditions.  Nobody has time to waste at Christmas, so I’ve worked on my recipe so that it has fewer separate process steps.  This recipe has more yeast to help the rich heavy dough rise.  

Stollen likes to age but the Davinator has proven that it can be eaten on the same day.  Thanks to Felicity Cloake of the Guardian who did a LOT of stollen research that I used in developing the recipe below. 

This recipe makes four 500 gram (one pound) loaves) that are a perfect size for gifting. To make a single large loaf, divide in half.  

Marzipan is one of those foods that divides people.  Marzipan is completely optional in this recipe.  And I’ve included two ways to roll it into the dough.  

Recipe

Ingredients

200g dried fruit; I use a mix of sultanas, cranberries and cherries. 
80 ml cooking brandy or dark rum 
320 ml semi-skim or whole milk
25g dried active yeast
300g unsalted butter, 50g to glaze later
850g plain flour, plus a bit extra
100g caster sugar
 12g salt
1 tsp ground nutmeg or other spice of your choice – but not cinnamon
4 egg yolks
50g mixed peel
50g flaked almonds
300g marzipan
Icing sugar (confectioners sugar) to glaze

Instructions

1.  Put the dried fruit to soak in the brandy.  Any dried fruit works but the individual pieces should be no larger than a sultana (raisin to Americans). Put a piece of plastic wrap over the top. 
2. Warm the milk to room temperature.  If you’re a mom, no hotter than a baby’s bottle.  You want the milk warm so that it doesn’t shock the yeast, but not so hot that it kills the yeast.  Add the yeast and one tablespoon of flour to the milk and stir well.  Cover with a shower cap or plastic wrap. 
3. Melt the butter.  Cover with a shower cap. 
4. Leave all three  bowls of ingredients for about 30 minutes.  Go wrap some presents or hang some ornaments on your Christmas tree. 
5. Combine flour, caster sugar, salt and spices in a large bowl.  I use nutmeg and I know that works.  You can experiment with other spices but avoid cinnamon.  Cinnamon is a yeast assassin.    Hence, the cinnamon roll was born (because the cinnamon is ON the dough not IN the dough).  
6. Add the milk and yeast mixture.  It should be foamy and smell yeasty now.   Stir it in.  Now add the butter and the egg yolks.   You will have a shaggy dough but it will come together. 
7. Prep a large bowl, oil lightly.  I use coconut based oil spray.  
8. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Set a timer and knead for 10 minutes.  If you don’t use a timer, you will be tempted to cheat.  This activity is also known as the ‘stollen workout’. 
9. Put the kneaded dough into the oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a shower cap.  Leave to rise in a warm draft free place for 45 minutes.  The yeast to dough ratio is high so it should rise relatively quickly,  It won’t double in size but should be puffy. 
10. Drain the dried fruit.  Drink the leftover alcohol (if desired) but don’t put it in the dough.  Strong spirit is another yeast assassin.  
11. Put your dough out on a lightly floured surface.  Pat it into a big rectangle.  Spread your flaked almonds and peel on the dough.  Now spread the marinated fruit on top.  Roll it up and knead in the fruit, nuts and peel.   This is kneading to incorporate ingredients not to develop gluten so stop when they feel reasonably mixed in. I use candied ginger as well (Davinator favourite).  
12. Put the dough back in the bowl and let it rise for another 30 to 45 minutes.  
13. Get your marzipan ready.  You need four chunks of 75 grams.  Knead the marzipan (like its play dough or clay) until soft and pliable.  You can either have a roll of marzipan in the centre of your dough (traditional) or you can have a thin layer that is a sort of a spiral in the centre (less traditional but seems more attractive to people who have reservations about marzipan).  First method is to roll each chunk into a log about 8 to 10 inches long, say an inch in diameter.  Second method is to roll your  marzipan into a rectangle about 8 by 8 inches. 
14. Your dough should be puffy again.  Separate into four equal parts for your four loaves – each one will weigh 500 to 600 grams.  Back to the lightly floured surface.  Roll out each portion of dough  into a rectangle.  If using traditional marzipan, place the log at the end nearest to you and roll the dough up into a long fat cylinder.  Sort of giant cigar shape.  If using the flat marzipan, place on the rectangle and roll up the dough. 
15. Place the loaves on baking sheets covered with parchment paper. Cover with plastic wrap. Let the loaves rise for 30 minutes to an hour and preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan). 
16. Bake for 35 minutes,  the loaves with be golden brown on top.  I try and use the bottom of the oven because it seems the stollen likes a gentle hear. 
17. Take the loaves out.  Brush with melted butter and dust with icing sugar.  Repeat this step at least 3 times but if you forget how many, do it a couple more times.  No one ever said no to butter and sugar at Christmas.  I have a fine mesh ‘sugar shaker’ and this is it’s highest and best use.  
18. Wrap your stollen in parchment paper, then foil and leave to rest for a day or so.  Keeps beautiful in the refrigerator for at least week.   I’ve put mine in a cool dark cupboard (essentially had to hide it from the Davinator) and it was lovely a month later. I forgot about it.  But it seldom hangs around for that long. 

Enjoy with butter or cheese or just as it comes.   Also lovely with my Christmas chutney. 

Merry Christmas, all. 

Or yourself!  It’s the run into Christmas and when I’m not baking or decorating, I’m Christmas shopping.  I try and give only gifts that people want.  Seems simple, but it can be surprisingly time consuming.

Here’s my list of 13 great gadgets for a baker that will fit in a Christmas stocking. Well,  maybe not in the min-stocking in the photo.  All really useful and none very expensive.  I am possibly Amazon’s biggest customer in the UK but all of these should be fairly widely available via a google search.

But first, why is a bakers dozen 13? Are bakers just bad at counting? Not really.

The most widely accepted theory is about avoiding a beating.  There were laws in England that based the price of bread on  the price of the wheat used to make it. Bakers who cheated  their customers by overpricing or selling undersized loaves or rolls were  punished by fines or flogging.  We all know its hard to make baked goods uniform and medieval bakers did NOT have a digital scale to help them.   The bakers would add that bit extra to ensure their goods didn’t come up ‘short’.  Hence, the baker’s dozen.

1. Dough scraper: a nice plastic gadget that gets all the batter out of the bowl, handy for kneading wet dough,  scraping stuff off the counter tops, mixing heavy dough, cutting dough.   Upper right corner.
   

   Clockwise from top left; countertop protector, dough scraper, fast read thermometer, cheap shower cap.

2. Plastic shower caps – but not the cheapest ones.  You can buy 100 on Amazon or eBay for £6.50 but they are so cheap it’s essentially single use plastic. We’re not fanatics but we’re trying to avoid plastic waste. So, give  the boxed ones that are 10 for £3 a try.  They last longer and survive a gentle rinse out if you get dough on one.
3. Thermometer(s).  Baking (all cooking actually) is essentially a chemistry experiment.  It’s good to be precise when it makes a difference.  There are instant read thermometers that will tell you if you roast is cooked,  your bread is ready or your boiling sugar is hard crack.   And things like oven temperature can be the difference between an exploding chocolate cake that creates an oven cleaning emergency or a mouth watering Sacher torte.  I have three I rely on; one to check the temperature of baked goods, one to leave in the roast and one to check oven temperature.  Search ‘instant read thermometer’ ‘oven thermometer’ ‘roast thermometer’.
   
   
4. Loaf pan liners. Paper liners save greasing pans, make clean up easier and a way less fiddly than cutting parchment to fit.   They come in 1 and 2 pound sizes.  There’s also pan liners for round cakes.   And the amount of fat that is used to grease a cake pan can destabilise the chemistry of your cakes.  Some day I will write on blog post on my struggle with making a Victoria sponge cake.  It’s my nemesis.  But pan liners helped me get there.
5. Offset spatula. Nerd alert here.   An offset spatula allows for better control and precision when icing cakes or lifting and moving cookies, chocolates or anything delicate.  Better yet, a set of three offset spatulas in different sizes.  The baking nerd in your life will love you. 
6. Pastry mat. A pastry mat is a flat sheet of plastic with markings that helps you eyeball when the dough has been flattened to a six inch diameter disk., for example.  A great short cut.  Also really speeds clean up.  Instead of painfully scraping up dough or flour you can just put the whole thing straight in the sink.  Roll it up tight and it should fit in the Christmas stocking. 
7. Egg whisk. Okay, more nerd stuff.  I went on an all day ‘egg’ course with my mate Lisa.  We cooked and ate a LOT of eggs.  Fried eggs, poached eggs, omelettes, scrambled eggs.  We learned the ‘right’ way to crack an egg (and a one handed crack method).  The best gadget we saw was a specialist egg whisk.  Lisa bought one for me later.  Here it is.
   
8. Miniature tape measure. I have a tiny tape measure in a magnetic case that lives on the extractor fan in my baking kitchen.  It means I don’t have remember (or guess) the dimensions of my multitude of pans, tins, baking trays etc.  It’s the kind of thing you might get in a Christmas cracker, but it’s a super little tool.
   
9. Spacers for rolling dough and sugar paste icing.  Back to our desire for precision.  If you’re making cookies or some kinds of dough or pastry – you want to roll it out to an even thickness.  Spacers are simple plastic guides – you put them on your pastry mat, whack the dough in between them and roll away.  Here’s a link to a YouTube video because it’s hard to visualise these until you’ve used them. 
10. Active dry yeast. Many bakers may have a favourite type of yeast, you can take a peek in your baker’s cupboard and see.  But if they make bread,  active dry yeast is a good bet.  I use a French brand ‘saf-levure’ that comes in 500 gram tins.  It might be a tight fit in the Christmas stocking but its top quality and its about 1/4 the price of supermarket purchases on a per gram basis. 
11. Cookie cutters.  Shaped cookies are not just for Christmas anymore.  So many shapes, themes and materials these days.   You can cut cookies for any holiday or special occasion. Find a shape that is special to them (I have a friend who’s a unicorn freak and I have a unicorn cookie cutter to make cookies for her) or maybe find them an antique biscuit cutter.  I have a set of Star Wars cookie cutters.  Serious Star Wars nerds in our house.
    
    

    One of my first forays into royal icing.

12. Good quality hand cream. Bakers wash their hands about 500 times a day.  I don’t actually know, I’ve never counted but it’s a lot.   I have two pricy favourites; ‘Occitane en Provence’ shea butter hand cream or ‘iColoniali’ myrrh hand cream.   Find a scent that your baker loves.
    
13. And finally – edible gold glitter (or any other special sprinkles for your baker).   Try this website for some fun and funky sprinkles.
    

Have a lovely Christmas, and bake on everyone.

Okay, I couldn’t resist just one more.  A stand to help fill your piping bags…….

A plastic gadget that should be cheaper but works a bomb.

Merry Christmas all…….