Not long now until Christmas!!!🎄 My absolute favourite time of the year!!! And it´s also a great time for baking, so, today I am sharing with you another one of my German baking classics: German Christmas Stollen!
If you love marzipan, dried fruits and spices you will absolutely love this German Christmas Stollen recipe!
My Grandma absolutely loves Stollen and always stocks up on it when it is sold at Morrisons around Christmas time… Because it is only available in the UK at Christmas, I thought that I would try making it myself for her. And she said it tastes better than the one from the shop, so hey, I´ll take that!
Stollen has been made by the Germans for centuries and is known by many different names, for example, “Christstollen” or “Weihnachtsstollen” (“Weihnachten” is the German word for Christmas). Fun fact: According to Wikipedia (aka the source of all knowledge), the largest Stollen ever made, was produced by Lidl (yes, the supermarket) in 2010 and was 72.1 metres long!
How Do You Make Christmas Stollen?
A German Christmas Stollen is made with an enriched, yeasted dough that is filled with dried fruits, spices, nuts and sometimes marzipan.
This German Christmas Stollen is filled with A LOT of fruit, which, in my opinion, is absolutely essential for any Christmassy, fruit cake!
Marzipan is also often incorporated into Stollens, most commonly there is a long “sausage” of marzipan running through the middle. This recipe includes a swirl of marzipan in the Stollen which makes the whole inside beautifully moist. I added quite a generous amount of marzipan as my Grandma absolutely loves it…
Enriched dough always needs a bit longer to rise because the butter slows down the action of the yeast. Adding a lot of fruit also makes the dough a lot heavier and makes it harder for it to rise. So be patient when it comes to waiting for it to rise (especially with the first prove). It will get there eventually!
This recipe makes one large Stollen which cuts into about 20 slices. Feel free to half the recipe to make a smaller Stollen, but I´d recommend simply making the whole lot! Stollen keeps extremely well due to high sugar content, so if you wrap it up well it can last up to 3-4 weeks.
This makes it the perfect Christmas bake that you can prepare a few weeks in advance. Simply wrap it up tightly in clingfilm and then some tinfoil before storing it in a cool place (the kitchen cupboard or a biscuit tin would do fine!).
More German Baking Recipes…
Christmas biscuits, known as “Plätzchen” are also extremely popular at this time of year! Why not try making these traditional Chocolate and Orange Crescents (“Kipferl”)?
If you are interested in making more German baking classics, I have a lot of recipes on my blog that you could check out! Why not try and make a classic Black Forest Gâteau (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte), German Baked Cheesecake (Käsekuchen) or another enriched dough classic: A German Nusszopf (plaited loaf filled with chocolate and hazelnuts)!
German Christmas Stollen | “Christstollen”
Recipe
Ingredients:
FOR THE DOUGH:
- 500g strong white flour
- 100g caster sugar
- 10g fast action yeast
- 10g salt
- 150g unsalted butter, very soft
- 200-250ml milk, lukewarm
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp drops almond extract
- 60g blanched almonds, finely chopped
- 200g currants
- 225g mixed fruit
TO ROLL:
- 20g butter, melted
- 250g marzipan
TO FINISH:
- 20g butter, melted
- 2 tbsp icing sugar
Rolling out the dough… 
Adding the marzipan… 
Ready to bake!
Method:
- Weigh the flour and sugar into a large bowl and mix. Add the dried yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other and stir them into the flour on their respective sides. It´s important to keep the two separate at first, otherwise, the salt may kill the yeast.
- Add the softened butter and most of the lukewarm milk and stir together. If the dough is still a bit dry, add some more milk. Turn the dough onto a generously floured surface and knead for 6-7 minutes, until smooth and stretchy.
- In a large bowl (you can use the same one as before), mix the nutmeg, ground cloves, fruit, chopped almonds, vanilla and almond extract together.
Add the dough on top and push it down into the fruit and nuts. Fold the dough from the outside into the centre gently pressing it down, continuing until all the fruit has been fully incorporated. - Quickly form the dough into a rough ball shape and dust with a little more flour. Cover the bowl with some cling film and leave to rise for 1-2 hours, until doubled in size.
- Once doubled, generously flour your work surface and rolling pin. Press down the dough into a rough square, then roll out into a large rectangle using the rolling pin. It should be rolled out until fairly thin, roughly to the thickness of the dried fruit.
- Next, roll out the marzipan into a rectangle that is the same width of the dough and roughly a third of its length. Place the marzipan on top of one side of the dough (see picture above). Brush some melted butter over the remaining two thirds of the dough.
- Roll the Stollen up from the shorter side that is topped with the marzipan. Place the Stollen onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for a further 45-60 minutes. Check that the dough is proved enough, by lightly pressing down a finger and checking if it springs back slowly (if it pops back immediately it needs more time, if the indentation stays, it might be over-proved).
- Bake the Stollen in the preheated oven at 170°C fan for 60-80 minutes. The Stollen will darken due to the sugar and fruit in the dough but bear with it!
- Once baked, remove the finished Stollen from the oven and brush with some more melted butter. Leave to cool slightly before dusting liberally with icing sugar.
Wait for the Stollen to cool completely before slicing and serving it (or wrapping it up to store).
