Christmas Stollen

3h 30 min

1 big Christmas stollen

This bread just tastes like Christmas, unbelievably delicious. You have to stretch some time for it, a little more than regular bread. But this is certainly worth it.

I used homemade almond paste, but you can also buy ready-made in the store and use it.

Most make stollen in the traditional way, a roll of almond paste in the center or side of the bread. But to be honest, I don’t like this at all, way too much of this in one place.

By the way, this is a comment that I see with many Christmas stollen recipes. So I thought no, I’m going to do my thing and go for the taste instead of the traditional looking Christmas stollen.

This way you have a little almond paste with every bite and not a whole lump in your mouth at once.

What do you need?

375 gr (13,23oz) all-purpose flour
50 gr (1,7 oz) sugar
160 ml (5,64 oz) semi-skimmed milk (lukewarm)
1 egg
1 teaspoon of gingerbread spices
10 gr (0,35 oz) dry yeast
7 gr (0,25 oz) of salt
75 gr (2,65 oz) butter (room temperature)

Filling 1

120 gr (4,23 oz) raisins
120 gr (4,23 oz) dried apricots
100 gr (3,5 oz) peeled almonds (roughly chopped)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Filling 2

200 gr (7 oz) almond paste
1 tablespoon of egg

Finish

Melted butter
Powdered sugar

How to make it?

Start by putting the raisins in water for 15 minutes. Then pat them dry with a dry tea towel or kitchen paper. Add 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour to the raisins. Stir well so all the raisins are covered with flour.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the flour, sugar, gingerbread spices, salt, yeast, egg and milk. Knead with your dough hook for 10 minutes. Now the dough forms a very solid mass.

Then add the butter little by little. Let the dough knead again until the butter is completely absorbed and you have a nice elastic dough, takes about 10 minutes.

Let the dough rest in the bowl for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, cut the dried apricots into pieces and chop the almonds.

Now add the raisins, apricots and almonds to the dough. Knead everything under the dough with your hands. Then let the dough knead for another 2 minutes with your machine. This way you can be sure that everything is nicely divided into the dough.

Make a ball of the dough and place it in an oiled bowl. Roll the dough ball in the oil so the oil is everywhere.

Cover the bowl with plastic foil and let the dough rise for 1 hour in a draft-free place.

Remove the almond paste from the refrigerator so it can reach the right temperature.

Just before processing the almond paste, knead 1 tablespoon of egg under the almond paste. This way it becomes slightly more moist and does not remove moisture from your dough.

Roll out the almond paste between two baking papers sheets into an oval shape.

Grease your workplace with oil and pour the dough on it. Flatten the dough with your hands to let the air out. Make an oval shape out of the dough.

Now put the almond paste on the dough and roll up the dough. Press down a little on the top edge and the sides of the dough.

Place on a baking tray covered with baking paper and cover with plastic wrap.

Let rise for 1 hour in a draft free place.

Preheat the oven to 160 °C or 320°F hot air and bake the bread for 40 minutes.

Remove it from the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack. After 10 minutes, brush the bread with the melted butter.

Let the bread cool down for at least 1.5 hours before you cut it. Before serving, sprinkle the bread with powdered sugar.

Bon Appetit!

Christmas Stollen