Butter Stollen Thuringian style

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 500 g wheat flour type 550
• 100 g milk
• 42 g fresh yeast, 1 cube
• 275 g sweet cream butter, room temperature
• 75 g sugar, finest
• 1 bag of Bourbon vanilla sugar
• 5 g salt
• 2 sachets of lemon peel flavoring, or fresh grated peel
• 300 g sultanas
• 8 cl rum, brown, 54% alcohol, approx. 70g
• 75 g almonds, chopped
• 50 g candied lemon peel
• 25 g candied orange peel
• 50 g sweet cream butter, liquid, for spreading
• 2 tbsp sugar, finest, for sprinkling
• 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 tsp cornstarch, for dusting

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Rest time approx. 1 day 2 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 1 day 3 hours 30 minutes

Moist, delicious! Also versatile as a stollen with almonds or marzipan

First, wash the sultanas, drain well, and place them in a sealable container with the rum. Let them steep for at least 24 hours. The rum should be completely absorbed; occasional shaking helps. On the day of baking, add the flour to a mixing bowl and make a deep well. Crumble the yeast into this well, add the milk, and mix the yeast and milk with just enough flour to form a soft starter. Cover the dough with the flour not needed for the starter and let it rise for 30-90 minutes, depending on the temperature of the milk. It should increase in volume significantly, and the surface of the flour should become noticeably cracked. In the meantime, scald the chopped almonds in boiling water, let them steep for 5 minutes, and then drain well. They will be added to the dough later. Once the pre-dough has risen, add room-temperature butter, sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, and lemon zest and knead the Stollen dough, then let it rise for 30 minutes. Next, knead in the fruit and almonds and shape the Stollen. If necessary, add a little more flour if the dough is too moist from the rum sultanas. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180–200°C (top/bottom heat). The more Stollen you’re baking at once, the hotter the preheating needs to be. Place the Stollen on a cold baking sheet lined with baking paper, brush with cold water, and place it in the oven without a proof, immediately reducing the temperature to 170°C. The baking time is 60 minutes. The baking time is crucial; the temperature may need to be adjusted. If it’s too dark, it will be dry; if it’s too light, it might not cook properly and therefore be sticky on the inside. The Stollen is then brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with sugar. Do not move the Stollen, as it is still very fragile. It is best to return the baking tray to the cooled oven. The next day, dust it liberally with a mixture of powdered sugar and starch. The starch prevents the powdered sugar from turning yellow. Now the finished Stollen is nicely packaged. Ideally, use a Stollen tube. In a pinch, you can also use cling film or aluminum foil plus a freezer bag. The Stollen should now sit for a while, but not necessarily for 2-4 weeks as often recommended. 2-3 days are perfectly sufficient; it is at its best after a week. If you don’t like candied lemon or orange peel or prefer marzipan, I have three delicious variations for you: 1. For a marzipan stollen, instead of the almonds, candied lemon, and orange peel, wrap 200g of marzipan strips into the stollen, or roll it up into a marzipan slab, and reduce the sugar to 50g. 2. For an almond stollen, double the amount, i.e., 150g of almonds, into the dough instead of candied lemon and orange peel. 3. For a sweet almond bread, omit the sultanas and instead soak 300g of almonds in rum. Butter the finished bread only, do not add sugar or dust with powdered sugar. Note: Why is this stollen Thuringian style? While this stollen meets the strict requirements of a genuine “Thuringian Christmas Stollen,” it can only be called that after certification. This certification consists of a laboratory analysis and a tasting by a jury that must award at least 4.5 out of 5 possible points. Only then do you receive a certificate and you can call yourself “Genuine Thuringian Christmas Stollen” for one season!