Stollen, with Morris doing some of the work
Stollen is the one bake of the year I make because of the calendar rather than because I feel like baking. It is a rich, heavy, fruit-filled bread that comes out of the oven, gets drowned in butter and sugar, and then has to be wrapped up and left for at least a week. I bake it about now and we start eating it on the 24th.
Last year's was a brick. I had added all the butter and fruit at the start and the dough never rose properly. Fat and sugar slow yeast down, and dried fruit drags through a dough like gravel. This year I changed two things: the starter and a small amount of commercial yeast share the job, and the butter goes in late.
The dough
| Ingredient | Percent | Grams |
|---|---|---|
| Strong white flour | 100% | 500 |
| Whole milk, warm | 40% | 200 |
| Active starter (100% hydration) | 20% | 100 |
| Egg (one large) | 10% | 50 |
| Sugar | 12% | 60 |
| Unsalted butter, soft | 40% | 200 |
| Instant yeast | 1% | 5 |
| Salt | 1.6% | 8 |
| Ground spices (cardamom, mace, cinnamon) | 1% | 5 |
| Raisins and currants, soaked | 60% | 300 |
| Candied peel | 20% | 100 |
| Flaked almonds, toasted | 12% | 60 |
Plus 150 g marzipan rolled into a log, zest of one lemon, 60 g melted butter and a lot of icing sugar for the finish. The night before, soak the raisins and currants in 40 g of rum and enough hot tea to cover; drain them well in the morning.
The salt is a bit below my usual 2%, because there is so much else going on, and the butter is lower than a traditional Dresden recipe, which can go to 50% or beyond. I tried that once. It was delicious and it fell apart when sliced.
Method
- Mix the flour, milk, starter, egg, sugar, yeast, spices and zest into a stiff dough. Knead for about eight minutes. It will feel too dry. It is not.
- Add the salt, then the soft butter a third at a time, kneading each in before the next. This takes a good ten minutes by hand and looks like a disaster half way through. Keep going until the dough is smooth and glossy.
- Cover and leave at a warm spot, around 26 °C, for two and a half to three hours. It will grow by maybe half. Rich dough does not double, and waiting for it to double is how I made last year's brick, only in reverse.
- Flatten the dough, scatter over the drained fruit, peel and almonds, and fold it in gently until evenly spread. Push any fruit poking out of the surface back in; exposed raisins burn.
- Press into an oval about 25 cm long. Make a groove down the middle with a rolling pin, lay the marzipan in it, and fold one side over, not quite to the far edge, so you get the classic hump.
- Onto a lined tray, cover, and prove for another 90 minutes.
- Bake at 170 °C for about 50 minutes, until 92 °C inside. Cover with foil after 25 minutes if the top darkens.
- While hot, brush with melted butter until it stops soaking in. Dredge with icing sugar. When cool, another layer of sugar, then wrap tightly in baking paper and foil.
How it went
Better than last year by a long way. It rose, it held its shape, the crumb was soft around the fruit rather than gummy. The cardamom comes through more than the cinnamon, which is how I like it. The bottom caught slightly, because my oven runs hot at the back and I forgot to turn the tray. A double tray underneath would have helped.
The starter does not make it taste sour. At 20% in a dough this rich, any sourness disappears under the butter and fruit. What it adds is keeping quality and a faint depth that is hard to name. Morris was a bit slow in the cold kitchen this week and needed two feeds at room temperature before he was lively enough to use, which I will remember as a warning about January.
It is now wrapped in a tin on top of the wardrobe, which is the only place in the house where nobody can reach it without a chair. Four days to go.