Stollen-Daring Bakers Challenge December 2010

The 2010 December Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make Stollen. She adapted a friend s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techiques from Peter Reinhart s  book and Martha Stewart s demonstration.
Stollen is traditional German Christmas bread-like fruitcake made with yeast,  water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Candied orange peel and candied citrus is often also added. Over the centuries, the cake changed from being a simple, fairly tasteless "bread" to a sweeter cake with richer ingredients.
I was really excited about the recipe and i loved it. It tasted so good that I eat whole stollen by my self. I promise I will make another one for my family and we will eat it all together on Christmas day.

Recipe:

Ingridients

60 ml lukewarm water
14 g active dry yeast
240 ml milk
140 g butter
770 g flour
115 g sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 eggs
grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract or orange extract
135 g mixed candied peel
170 g raisins
3 tablespoons rum
12 red glace cherries roughly chopped for the color and taste ( I used candied strawberries)
100 g flaked almonds
melted butter for coating the wreath
powdered sugar for dusting wreath
In a small bowl, soak the raisins in the rum or in the orange juice from the zested orange and set aside.
Pour water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
In a small saucepan, combine milk and butter over medium heat until butter is melted. let stand until lukewarm, about 5 minutes.
Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add lemon and vanilla extracts.
In a large mixing bowl stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zest.
Then stir in the yest/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm  milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.
Add in the mixed peel, soaked fruit and almonds and mix with your hands or on low speed to incorporate. Here is where you can add the cherries if you would like. Be delicate with the cherries or all your dough will turn red.
Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. Knead for approximately 8 minutes. You can tell when the dough is is kneaded enough- a few rasins will start to fall of the dough onto the counter.
Lightly oil a large bow and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Put in the fridge overnight. The dough becomes very firm in the fridge but it does rise slowly... the raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want.

Shaping the dough and baking the wreath

Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 180 C with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Punch down dough, roll into rectangle about 40 x 60 cm and 6 mm thick.Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder. Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 5 cm intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough.Twist each segment outward, forming a wreath shape. Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until 1 1/2 times its original size. Bake the stolen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes. The bread will bake to a dark mahogany color, should register 88 C in the center of the loaf, and should sound hollow when thumpen on the bottom.
Transfer to a cooling rack and brush the top with melted butter while still hot. Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter. Wait for 1 minute, than tap another layer over the first. The bread should be coated generously with the powdered sugar because this helps to keep the stollen fresh. Let cool at least an hour before serving.

Printable version