Stollen

I’m not an advocate of Christmas creep but I don’t see anything wrong with practicing well before the holidays. Besides, this week is the first week of the season where the high temperature for the day in Miami is below 80 degrees. It’s officially winter!  Not quite, but whatever. Details.

Staying in the family of rich sweet doughs, we’re tackling stollen. This is one of those breads that people either love or hate. Really, it isn’t fair to the stollen. There are soooo many recipes and variations.  Like many people, I’ve also tried the stollen that was hard as a rock and seems filled with petrified unidentifiable fruit. I always questioned the concept of bread that can be wrapped up to last “forever”.  To the uninitiated, it’s hard to find a way to describe it without uttering the word, “fruitcake”, at which point people cringe remembering some long ago uncomfortable visit to an elderly distant relative that insisted you try it and take an extra one home, despite it being two years old.  It doesn’t have to be this way!

Yes, stollen is a bread-like fruitcake. There are thousands of variations on this tradition. I wanted to stick to something traditional that included its distinct flavor so as not to offend stollen enthusiasts, but without inducing cringes by everyone else. I set out to convert people to the brighter side of stollen. The major change…traditionally, it would include glaceed (candied) fruits.  This is what I think might be the dealbreaker for many people. Biting into dessert bread and having your teeth crunch into hard candy does not a happy Christmas caroler make. I opted to stick to raisins and dried fruit (cherries, cranberries, blueberries). No glazes. Next time, I might soak the fruit in brandy first but it is only October after all.  I guess I wasn’t that festive yet.  Some people include a marzipan “rope” in the middle of the dough but it isn’t my preference. I just used some almond extract. 

The end result was a bread that was not as dense, tasted distinctly stolleny and didn’t hurt anyone’s teeth. Woohoo!

Here’s an interesting factoid:  Stollen used to be tasteless and hard due to a lack of butter. In the 15^th century, in the Saxon royal court, the Advent season was a time of fasting and the Catholic Church required bakers to use oil instead of butter.  After writing letters to various popes and waiting 40 years, a “butter letter” was sent by Pope Innocent VIII granting the right to use butter, without requiring payment of a fine, but only to the Prince-Elector and his family and household. So how is it that Saxons came to enjoy buttery stollen during the holidays without paying a fine?  Saxony became Protestant.  Good thing too. While I was more conservative, I've heard that some European bakeries keep an enormous pot of melted butter handy to dip entire loaves in.  yum.

Tomorrow… we eat babka!