Christmas Stollen

Took Jessica’s advice and made it in the bread machine. It came out much better than when I made it by hand. Much bigger and fluffier, not so heavy. Great recipe. I love it!

I love stollen, this was my first attempt at making my own. I turned the recipe vegan by omitting the egg, used soy milk, and margarine. Overall it was tasty, but next time I want to try swirling the marzipan in the dough, I will also try to soak the fruits as many suggested.

This is an EXCELLENT recipe! The consistency of the dough is perfect!! The only thing I think that is missing are spices- I added nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon peel, and ginger in generous amounts. The other recommendation I have is to reduce the marzipan as it is sweet. I think less will be more in this case. Finally, I used hot water to dissolve the yeast as I was getting no where with the milk and therefore, eliminated the milk altogether.

This was my first time making bread, and it was very easy to make. I had to use my intuition with a few things, however. It took about 3 hours to initially rise, whereas the recipe says it takes about 1 hour. it took longer to rise the second time as well. I consulted a friend who’s a baker because it threw me off, and she said that the fruits really weigh the dough down, making it take longer. Makes sense. I also baked it for 10 min at 150 then reduced heat to 300 like the recipe calls for, but I kept a very close watch on it and pulled it out of the oven after only 20 minutes (recipe says 30-40 min). My advice would be to do the same and keep a close eye on the bread, pulling it out when it becomes a nice golden brown. It was a HUGE hit at my family gathering yesterday and it was baked to perfection.

Wonderful, wonderful

BETTER than German stollen! At least that she what my German friend told me. And I believe her! It’s incredibly good.procedurally, It’s similar to other yeast bread recipes, so don’t be intimidated by other reviews. I did hand-knead (not use my stand mixer) to be sure it was kneaded to the right consistency. IT made one really big loaf– great for a party. I folded the dough the way the “corinaesq” review suggested. I also applied a lot of melted butter to it once it came out of the oven then layers of powdered sugar. That gave it a moist, yet almost crisp And sweet crust. Now im sending my friend back to germany with this recipe so she can have a proper Stöllen next Christmas!

Love this recipe. My friends and family love them as well. I replaced butter with coconut oil by 80%(20%Butter) and turned out great and flavorful.

So yummy! I did have to add extra flour, but it was a hit! I couldn’t find citron, but ended up making it from scratch. Boil the orange peels ten minutes and discard the water, boil again ten mins discard water again. The third time add equal amount of sugar and water as the peels and boil to candy temperature. Sweet not bitter citron, and that made it the best.

Have made and loved it, tried gluten free and disappointed. Will stick with the original. (try adding almond paste since I had it on hand. Yum. )

I made it once…then I had to make it again a total of five times, as my family always wanted more. Great recipe. I soaked the fruit in rhum before using them, and added a couple more tablespoons flour (often have to do this in Canada I find, our flour is a little different). The dough is very, very moist compared to bread, or even brioche, but after letting it rest an hour, it handled perfectly well, and the result was delicious. For some reason, this dough never rose for me the way bread usually does, but it does gain volume while cooking. Will make again next Christmas, or even before if the family have their way.

Tasted quite dry. It probably needs more butter and fruit.

Loved this. I used my bread machine. If you do this you need to be sure to use instant yeast designed for bread machines. Use the dough cycle then shape the dough and bake. I have made stollen in my bread machine before and I would suggest that fruit be added a little later in the mixing cycle. I put it in after about 2 minutes and a lot of the fruit pieces got crushed but still a great result. I also added the cinnamon to the dough and I think the recipe suggests it be sprinkled on at the end. Anyway it didn’t cause any problems for me. Sometimes spices can cause the dough to rise less. I removed it from the oven when the internal temperature of the bread was 200 degrees and then brushed with a lot of butter. I then topped it off with frosting. Sooooooo good. This is the first time I have made stollen with an almond paste center. It was great but I think it would be nice to have it dispersed throughout the bread more. Maybe next time I will make 3 skinny ropes. Hope this helps and that you enjoy as much as we did.

I made several changes, but I have been making Stollen almost every Christmas for 50 years. Sometimes, I just use the candied fruit available at Christmas for fruitcakes, and add raisins or currants. sometimes I just used raisins and currants. I buy the almond filling for pastries instead of Marzipan. I found it too sweet as well as too expensive. But the seasonings and amounts of ingredients were so similar to the original recipe I found in my mother’s Joy of Cooking cookbook from 1947 thatthis has been my go to recipe for Stollen for about 5 years

This bread turned out deliciously. Mine took much longer to rise than the recipe stated but it was probably because my yeast was a bit old. I tried a reviewer’s suggestion of making the dough in the bread machine, though I had to use more flour than the reviewer suggested. This might be because I sifted the flour first. However, the end result was perfect. I will be making this a tradition for Christmas.

Follow the recipe and it comes out great. This will be a new Christmas tradition.

I’ve made this stollen for my wife’s family and our friends here in Chile for three years now. As Chile has a strong Germanic presence, stollen is well-known here, but this one gets rave reviews. My wife claims that it is even better than that of my mother, and she was FROM Germany. Oh, I DO do one thing differently; After it’s baked, I brush the top with soft butter and put down a thick layer of confectioner’s sugar.

I made it exactly according to directions! it was wonderful! Thank you Lee for this great recipe!

This has become our new Christmas tradition. Great for dessert for guests or for gifts.

Delicious, and got absolutely rave reviews from the family! This did not rise very well for me, but it turned out excellent in the end. I ended up doing the first rise for about 2 1/2 hours and the second for about 1 1/2, and I don’t think it fully doubled either time. I think in the future I might try a batch with rapid rise yeast. Otherwise, I went a little heavy on the fruit (but not by too much), soaked the currants and raisins in coconut rum (it was what I had) for a few hours, and split the marzipan into three ropes instead of one. That turned out to be a great decision. I laid them side by side and then made sure to keep them separated as I folded over the dough so that there was a little morsel of marzipan in roughly each third of each slice in the bread. This was really fantastic, and although a fair bit of work, I will definitely plan to make it each Christmas!

I did not use marzipan, I had some in freezer, will use next time (Easter). I made 2 separate recipes and added the dry yeast to mixer, then added 120-130 degree whole milk.

This recipe is the ticket to old fashioned, down home, German stollen! Wunderbar!!