In Germany, one of the symbols of Christmas is stollen

The sweet is prepared with many dried fruits and nuts

Every European country has its own specialty made only for Christmas. The traditional sweet prepared for the holiday in Germany is stollen. It is covered with powdered sugar that resembles snow and looks like a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. By early December, stollen is already displayed in shop windows, a sign of the approaching holidays. Other traditionally German sweets are made from waffle cones, chocolate, and sugar, baked in the shape of little houses.

There are many recipes, but the essential ingredient is plenty of dried fruits, nuts, and the butter brushed onto the baked crust and sprinkled with powdered sugar, which creates the delicious taste of sweet fruits.

And now I will tell you about several original stollen recipes and the tradition and history of this German sweet.

Traditional German Stollen

• 200 g mixed dried fruits (apples, plums, apricots, pears, raisins, figs)
• 500 g flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tsp fresh milk
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 packet yeast
• 300 g pure butter
• 100 g crushed almonds (or walnuts)
• 1 packet vanilla
• zest of 1 lemon (or orange zest)
• 100 g powdered sugar for sprinkling

Soak the dried fruits for about 1 hour in cold water or rum. Place the flour and salt in a bowl, making a well in the center. Warm half of the fresh milk slightly, then add 1 teaspoon sugar to it. Stir well and add the yeast to dissolve it. Pour the resulting mixture into the well in the flour and knead together with the flour until a dough forms.

Cover and let the dough rest in a warm place for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, melt 200 g butter and add the remaining milk. Add the almonds, 50 g sugar, vanilla, and lemon zest and beat with a mixer until you get a smooth dough. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Remove the fruits from the water and dry them well. Cover the bottom of the baking tray with baking paper and spread out the dough, add the fruits, and roll into a log. Bake in a preheated oven.

Melt 75 g butter and brush the finished sweet with it, sprinkle generously with powdered sugar, and let it cool.

Christstollen, Dresden Christmas Cake

• 700 g flour
• 250 g butter
• 125 ml warm milk
• 5 tbsp sugar
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 egg
• 100 g candied orange and lemon peel
• 1 tbsp grated lemon zest
• 200 g sliced almonds
• 250 g raisins
• 1 tsp salt
• 40 g bread yeast
• 1 tbsp rum
• 1 pinch cinnamon

For brushing:

• 50 g butter
• 50 g powdered sugar

Sift the flour into a bowl, make a well in it, and add the egg, sugar, melted butter, warm milk, yeast, vanilla, cinnamon, lemon zest, and salt. Mix everything well and add the candied peels, nuts, and raisins marinated in rum. Mix again. You should get a firm but elastic dough. If needed, add a little more warm milk or flour. Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rise for 2 hours in a warm place.

On a floured surface, shape the dough into an ellipse, roll it out thickly, and fold it in half. Place it in a baking pan, brush with water, and let it rise a second time. After rising, place the dough in the middle of the oven and bake for about 15 minutes at 200°C and another hour at 180°C until it browns well. If it browns too quickly, cover with aluminum foil. While still hot, brush the sweet generously with butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

History of Stollen

The baking of the Christmas sweet stollen was first recorded in 1329 in Naumburg. It was prepared as a Christmas gift for the local pastor. At that time, it was not yet a sweet, but rather a tasteless bread product for the Christmas fasting period. If anything has been preserved from that time stollen, it is its shape – resembling a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.

According to the doctrines of the Catholic Church in those years, before Christmas it was not allowed to eat butter and milk. For the preparation of stollen, only water, oats, and oil extracted from beets were used. The problem was that what was prepared this way was not pleasant to eat at all and offended the 'refined' taste of the nobility.

Therefore, in 1430, Elector Ernst von Sachsen and his brother Duke Albrecht wrote a letter to Pope Nicholas V asking that the prohibition on using butter in stollen be lifted. However, the Pope adhered strictly to the norms and refused to grant the request.

Only in 1491 did Pope Innocent VIII issue the so-called 'Butter Letter', which allowed fresh butter to be used instead of beet oil. But with one condition – believers who used butter for stollen had to pay compensation, with the funds being collected for the construction of the cathedral in Freiberg.

The idea of using the pre-Christmas bread, intended for the fasting period, for the festive Christmas meal belonged to someone named Heinrich Drasdo, a baker at the Saxon court. He simply added plenty of dried fruits to the dough and changed it forever.

Today, however, the most famous is the Dresden stollen, which is also a protected trademark, even though the sweet was first mentioned there 150 years after Naumburg. In the archives of the Saxon court there is a receipt confirming the purchase of products for Christmas stollen. It was called Christ's bread or stritzel. From 1560, the tradition in Dresden was for bakers to give their master a stollen that was 1.50 meters long.
In 1730, August the Strong ordered a stollen weighing 1.8 tons to be baked for the holiday and divided into 24,000 portions.

Even today, the tradition is preserved, and there is a special day in December called the Stollen Festival. But despite the desire of the Dresden bakers to have the right to bake and sell stollen themselves, this was only allowed them after the end of the Thirty Years' War.

Today there are different varieties of stollen, depending on what is added to the dough. The important thing, however, is to follow one rule – for 1 kg of flour, use 500 g of butter. Thus every slice becomes an energy bomb with its 400 calories.

It is best to use oat flour. Fresh butter should in no way be replaced with margarine. You also need shelled almonds, raisins, lemon and orange peel, as well as various other dried fruits. It would not be bad to let all the ingredients sit together for 12 hours at room temperature. That way they will get to know and understand each other before they are mixed into the dough.

Then the flour is placed in a large bowl, with a hole made in the middle, where the yeast is crumbled. Sprinkle with sugar – one teaspoon per yeast cube. Pour in cold milk and sprinkle flour on top again. Mix and set aside until bubbles appear in the dough. Cover and wait.

In the meantime, place the dried fruits in rum. The dough is ready when it is tight and does not drag. Mix it with the fruits, knead well, then let it rest for two hours in a warm place.

Only after that do you shape it like a baby in swaddling clothes. Optionally add marzipan to it. Wrap in aluminum foil, leaving air on the sides. Bake for a long time in a low oven.

After removing from the oven, pour with melted butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Just one bite of this Christmas sweet is enough to feel full all day.

Stollen with Marzipan

Also called Christmas Stollen or Christ Stollen

A note beforehand:

Baking a juicy Christmas stollen is somewhat time-consuming: the fruits must be soaked the day before, and it tastes best if, after baking, you wrap it up and let it sit for a few days or weeks. (Even if it's hard to wait...)

All ingredients should be of the best quality (since you're putting in the effort) and should be at least room temperature when processing.

Yeast dough likes it nice and warm. So never let it get cold and make sure there are no drafts in the kitchen.

Other interesting websites:

• http://christstollen.sichen.de/
• http://www.brigitte.de/kochen/rezepte/stollen-532010/
• http://www.theklaus.de/xmas.htm