Another night of baking as my list is dwindling. At this point I am pretty sure I am not going to get to a few things. I have to make the stollen though or my inner Kraut gets all uppity and demands cabbages and sausages.
The Jules was a big help with the stollen this year as he volunteered to knead the dough (it’s one of those I insist be done by hand — I know I have issues) and I made only one instead of the double recipe in years past. I also soaked the fruits in boiling water and brandy before adding them to the dough. Fruits this year consisted of homemade candied orange peel, dried cranberries and chopped dried apricots. I usually add raisins or currants but I couldn’t find either in my larder and I had all this other dried fruit to use. It required extra flour to soak up the brandied fruit juice but the stollen is much lighter than before and rose beautifully. I also went back to the roll of marzipan in the middle over chunks of marzipan in the dough and I think I much prefer it. Besides, it looks cool sliced with the circle of marzipan in the fold of the loaf.
Wherein we completed the kneading of the stollen
Wherein our heroes completed the baking of the stollen
Oh, one other addition: with the vanilla, I added 1 teaspoon of orange flower water. I had read about it being used in pannetone somewhere and thought it would add to the stollen. I can’t tell if it is the strength of the home candied peel or the orange flower water but the citrus note is lovely.
Whereupon it snowed of the powdered sugar
When we did feast upon part of the stollen (and cleaved it to show the gentle readers the wondrous marzipan middle)
