Food

‘Tis the Season… 🙂

I am going to share the recipe of the stollen we make in Germany.
It is not the same as the traditional Christmas Stollen, because my family isn’t too keen on Marzipan.
I figure there are other people out there in the same boat, but who would like stollen too.
So in the spirit of the season — I’ll share.

Quark Stollen (Christmas Stollen)

Bake well in advance to improve the flavor, it will keep for a few weeks. (We let ours rest for at least 2 weeks before we eat it.)
Wrap in foil or store in an airtight container and keep in a cool place. (We wrap ours in tin foil)

Quark is a kind of Baker’s Cheese / Baker’s Curd. We can get it in the UK, not sure about the US. Ask around. 🙂
In France Quark is “Fromage Blanc”.

This recipe will make 2 Stollen.

500g ( 18 oz )  plain flour, sifted
6 level teaspoons of baking powder
150g ( 5 1/2 oz )  ground almonds
150g  ( 5 1/2 oz ) unsalted butter, cold, cut into small cubes
2 eggs
150g ( 5 1/2 oz) caster sugar
250g ( 9 oz ) Quark
250g ( 9 oz  ) raisins
110g ( 4 oz ) mixed chopped orange and lemon peel, the grated rind of 1 lemon ( unwaxed or organic / bio )
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon dark rum
A few drops of almond extract
A pinch of salt
Extra (for glaze): melted unsalted butter
powder ( icing ) sugar
(Use the lemon juice from the lemon you use for the lemon peel, if you want to modify step 8, as below.)

   1. Mix the flour, baking powder, ground almonds, grated lemon rind, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, almond extract, vanilla extract, rum, pinch of salt and the quark all together on a board.
   2. Add the butter and quickly knead into a dough. (Don’t take too long, it kinda goes runny if you’re not careful.)
   3. Add the raisins and chopped peels and knead them in.
   4. Refrigerate for 1 hour
   5. Divide the dough in half
   6. Roll out the dough, and fold over to form a Stollen
   7. Bake at: 180 C ( 350 F / gas 4 ) for a good 1 hour or until golden brown
   8. Brush generously with melted butter and dust with powder ( icing ) sugar, while the stollen is still hot. (It forms a kind of glaze when it cools)
   9. Leave to cool and store well in a cool place, dust with more powder ( icing ) sugar just before serving

We do a variation on step 8. My brigade mixes lemon juice into the butter, which gives it a nice lemony glaze when it all cools down. Since that’s not to everyone’s taste, I left that bit out.
If you are doing the butter glaze, let the stollen cool completely before you put it on! Otherwise it’ll either never harden, or take forever (in which case you can’t wrap the darn things to store for “resting”.)

Enjoy!

(If you can’t get candied orange peel / lemon peel — there is a simple recipe for making it here