Recipe for Eliora's Stollen

.Eliora's Stollen

 

I am always very hands on with ingredients, and rely on the feel of the dough rather than on exact measurements. The dough must rest a lot between kneeding. I left it for a whole night in a warm place to rise, and in fact, divided the dough into two Stollen, and let them rise. The dough should feel soft but will also be heavy through the added dried fruit and the marzipan.

 

800 g plain flour

140 g butter

1.5 teaspoons yeast

250ml lukewarm milk for the yeast

sugar (as much or as little as you want)

fruit peel from oranges, lemons and limes, finely chopped

raisins

ground almonds

Marzipan for the filling

(either readymade or freshly made from ground almonds with rose water and icing sugar)

 

Put the flour into a bowl, and make a mould in the centre. Pour in the lukewarm milk and dissolve the yeast with a small amount of sugar, as in any yeast dough. Stir gently the milk and the yeast and sugar and then cover the bowl with a cloth and put it in a warm place for the yeast to work, roughly for half an hour.

If the yeast has started to create bubbles start to mix the flour and the bubbles with your hands and work the liquid into the flour until it gives a crumbly texture. Then rub in the butter and the sugar and start kneeding. When all is well mixed and starting to look like a dough add the fruity ingredients and the ground almonds.

Leave to rest in a warm place again, and I always kneed about every half hour for as long as possible and then leave it to rise further.

When it feels already softer and has risen, which will happen with every time a bit more you can also add the marzipan chunk by making two halfs of the dough, then sandwich the marzipan in the centre and kneed the upper and bottom half together and spread the dough out a bit more on the buttered tray, so that it is rather flat. It is a very rich cake, so it is wise to have flat slices later, that you cut as thick or as thinly as you like.

 

I leave it over night to rest under the cloth in a warm place, and then let it bake in the oven at about 190 / gas 5 for about 45-50 minutes, if fan assisted, otherwise it might be a bit longer. Just check after fourty minutes with a skewer, whether the dough is still sticky inside.

After baking cover it with icing sugar - let it snow generously.

 

Stollen keeps for quite a long time, so you can make two Stollen from this recipe, one for immediate eating, one to keep or to give as a present.

 

 

 

 

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