Making Christstollen, a November Tradition

Despite the increasing number and size of the Christmas displays that have been appearing in stores since the beginning of September, I have managed to avoid thinking too much about the coming Christmas season. However, Mid-November is time to start thinking about Christmas baking. While Stollen, the German sweetened bread with nuts, raisins and citron that is very popular at Christmas, can be eaten fresh, it actually is better when stored for a few weeks. The general rule of thumb is to bake Stollen at least 4-6 weeks before it is to be served. So now is the right time to start baking it.

I use a recipe that I have adapted from the Dr. Oetker's Schulkochbuch (School Cookbook) from 1939. Dr. Oetker is sort of the Betty Crocker of Germany. Maybe even bigger in Germany than Betty Crocker is in America since in addition to a historic line of cookbooks, the company also sells cooking ingredients. This year, the Schulkochbuch is celebrating 100 years of publication with its 10th edition. Each edition is a bit different, reflecting the tastes of its time. I like using the 1939 edition (the 3rd edition) because the amounts of sugar and fat used in its recipes are much less than a recipe from current cookbooks. I suspect this is because these ingredients were much more expensive at that time.

The recipe is called "Simple Christstollen". I'll first give the recipe from the book (not a literal translation) and then provide additional insights to the recipe as well as some of the variations that I've used.

Simple Christsrollen

100g Schmaltz

100g Butter

125g Sugar

1 Egg

1/2 container of Dr. Oetker's Lemon Backoil (Backoil is explained below)

500g Flour

1 package Dr. Oetker's Backin

1/4 cup Milk at room temperature

125g Raisins

50g Currants

50g Citron

50g chopped Almonds or Walnuts

• In one bowl, mix the fat, sugar, egg and backoil until creamy.
• In another bowl, mix the flour and the backin.
• To the fat/sugar mixture mix in 3/4 of the flour mixture and the milk to form a wet dough.
• Knead in the raisins, currants, citron, nuts and remaining flour until the dough accepts the remaining flour.
• Form a stollen and place on a flour covered baking sheet.
• Optionally after baking, drizzle with a little additional butter and sprinkle with powder sugar.
• Backing time: 1-1.5 hours in middle hot oven.

Schmaltz is rendered pork fat. It is cheaper than butter and doesn't have a distinct taste. So mixing with butter is quite frugal. Using all butter is fine, as would using margarine.

Backoil is flavoring that is used in baking in Germany. Personally, I find it artificial tasting, especially the lemon and orange flavors. So I prefer using the zest of one lemon.

Backin is German baking powder. It is sold in packages containing 5 teaspoons. This is different than the American baking powder and should not be substituted for each other. Some specialty grocery stores will have packets of Dr. Oetker's Backin (the Andersons in Columbus carries them, or you can find it on Amazon). If not, a reasonable substitute is a 2 to 1 mixture of cream of tartar and backing soda.

A lot of people prefer yeast as the rising agent (Magda is one of these). I've used both fresh and dried yeast in place of the backin quite often in this recipe, but doing so means giving the yeast some time to work. I give the yeast a good start by mixing it with the warm (but not hot) milk, and a little bit of the sugar and flour from the recipe about an hour before getting started. This mixture is added with the 3/4 of the flour mixture to form the initial dough. Once fruit and remaining flour is kneaded together, I leave the ball of dough to rise in a bowl covered with a towel for about 2 hours. Then after forming the Stollen, I cover them with a towel and let rise for an additional hour before baking.

Most any dried fruit can be used in place or in addition to the raisins and currants.For example, I've used dried cranberries several times. I do like to soften the fruit a little by soaking in a liquid for a couple of hours. Rum or orange liqueur would be traditional liquids. Orange juice would also be OK, if staying away from alcohol is important. 

Forming a stollen simply means rolling the dough in to a thick oval, the length of the loaf that you want, and lengthwise folding one side of the oval over the other. Let the bottom part hang out a little bit, you don't quite want the top part to cover it completely.

The recipe makes a 1 kg (a little over 2 lbs) Stollen, which is a pretty good size loaf. 2 half kilogram (1 lb) Stollen may make more sense if you are planning to serve groups of 3 to 5. In the pictures below, I made 4 small Stollen that would be just right as a gift to a single person or a couple.

For a number of reasons, bake temperature and time are always a problem when using old recipes. The idea is to bake until the Stollen are golden brown. I use the over and under heat setting on our oven. What I do is pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C, and then turn the oven down to 175 C when I put the Stollen in. Bake time for the 1 kg Stollen is 40 to 45 minutes. If you make 2 or 4 smaller Stollen, the bake time will be a little less. Obviously, if you use convection, you should reduce temperatures.