Dresden Christmas Stollen

The history of the Dresden Stollen dates back to the 15th century. It was baked on Christmas Eve, and the shape of the cake was supposed to symbolize the Baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. Cooking stollen is a lengthy and troublesome procedure, the finished cake should, according to the rules, lie down for two weeks in order to be soaked through with all the flavors it should be. Stollen was baked during Advent, the time of Catholic fasting and preparation for the holiday, the original recipe for the cake was lean - only flour, salt, yeast and vegetable oil. Spices at that time were an unaffordable luxury. Therefore, the taste of the first stollen was far from the sweet masterpiece we can taste today.

Ingredients

• 425 g raisins
• 50 g peeled almonds
• 70 g candied orange fruits
• 70 g candied lemon
• 50 ml dark rum
• 400 g marzipan 70%
• 125 g flour
• 100 ml milk at room temperature
• 50 g fresh yeast
• 250 g butter
• 100 g icing sugar
• 25 g ground nutmeg
• 12 g ground cardamom
• 2 g vanilla seeds
• 2 g grated lemon zest
• 10 g ground cinnamon
• 3 g ground cloves
• 600 g flour
• 325 g butter
• 75 g sugar
• 2 yolks
• 6 g salt
• 10 g spice mix

Directions

1. A mixture of spices. Place all the spices in a small glass jar, close the lid and shake well. Keep the spices in the jar until needed.
2. Filling. Stir all the filling ingredients in a bowl, cover and leave at room temperature for at least 8 hours.
3. Dough. In a bowl, combine all the ingredients for the dough, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature to rise, for 2-3 hours.
4. Dough. Put all the ingredients for the dough, including the spice mixture, into the bowl of the planetary mixer, add the dough. Start kneading the dough with the hook attachment at low speed, after 5 minutes. increase to medium speed and stir for another 5 minutes. Cover the bowl with a napkin and let sit for 30 minutes.
5. Add the rum-soaked dried fruits and almonds to the dough and stir slowly.
6. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Roll each into a 20x12 cm rectangle. Divide the marzipan in half and roll it into bundles 20 cm long. Mentally draw a rectangle of dough lengthwise into 3 parts. Put a marzipan tourniquet on the central part and wrap it in the free edges of the dough, like in a diaper. Seal the sides well to prevent the marzipan from leaking out during baking. Transfer the shtollen to a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Leave it on for 10 minutes.
7. Preheat oven to 180 ° C. Spray the sides of the oven with water to add some steam. Bake stollens for 50-60 minutes.
8. Coating. Transfer the finished shtollens to the wire rack, if there are burnt raisins on the surface, remove them. Melt the butter to cover and brush the hot stollens, sprinkle heavily with powdered sugar. Cool it down.
9. Wrap the shtollens in parchment and leave to ripen for 14 days. During this time, the sugar on the stollen can turn yellow, so sprinkle the stollen with powdered sugar again before serving.