Our Easiest Stollen
Our Easiest Stollen
(21)
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| quick-n-easy | |
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| Total time: | |
| Yield: | 2 loaves |
Ingredients
Dough
- 2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt*
- 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) cold butter
- 1 cup ricotta cheese, part-skim milk type
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor, optional but good
- 1/4 teaspoon lemon oil or 1/4 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia
- 1 cup dried fruit blend; or 1/2 cup golden raisins + 1/2 cup of your favorite dried fruits, chopped to 1/2" pieces if necessary
- 1/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted and cooled
- *Reduce the salt to 1/4 teaspoon if you use salted butter
Topping
- 6 tablespoons butter, melted
- 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar or non-melting white sugar
Directions
1) Preheat your oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet, or line it with parchment.
2) Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl.
3) Cut the cold butter into small chunks, then blend it into the flour mixture to form uneven crumbs.
4) In a separate bowl, mix together the cheese, egg, vanilla, and flavors.
5) Toss the fruit and almonds with the flour mixture until evenly distributed. Then combine the wet and dry ingredients, mixing until most of the flour is moistened.
6) Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, and knead it two or three times, until it holds together. Divide it in half.
7) Roll each piece of dough into an 8" x 7" oval about 1/2" thick.
8) Fold each piece of dough roughly in half, leaving the edge of the top half about 1/2" short of the edge of the bottom half. Should you fold the long way, or the short way? The long way will give you a longer, narrower stollen, with shorter slices; folding the short way will give you a wider, fatter stollen, with longer slices.
9) Use the edge of your hand to press the dough to seal about 1" in back of the open edge; this will make the traditional stollen shape. It's also the familiar Parker House roll shape, if you've ever made them.
10) Place the shaped stollen on the prepared baking sheet.
11) Bake the stollen till they're very lightly browned around the edges, about 40 minutes. A cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean.
12) Remove the stollen from the oven, and transfer to a rack. Brush them each with 2 to 3 tablespoons melted butter. Sprinkle heavily with confectioners' or non-melting white sugar.
13) Allow the stollen to cool, then brush with butter again, and sprinkle with sugar again. Wrap in plastic wrap till ready to serve. Plastic-wrapped stollen will keep well for 2 weeks or so at room temperature.
Yield: two 1-lb. stollen loaves.
Reviews
12/31/2011- This is *so* easy to make, and it's very tasty, too. The texture was a little crumbly, but that may be because I substituted almond flour for 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour...I also used a little orange extract because there wasn't any lemon peel or oil in the house. It held together and it tasted great, but it was very delicate and I had to be careful carrying it. I have to try it again some time when I have all the ingredients available--and I'm not sure I can wait until next December!
- 12/15/2011
- Great recipe. I'm Norwegian and like to add fresh-ground cardamom to Christmas bread. 1 teaspoon worked great in this recipe.Not everyone cares for cardamom, so I used to make at least two recipes of yeasted stollen,one with cardamom and one without. It's so much easier to make multiple recipes of this. Delicious!
12/03/2011- This is the very first time I ever baked Stollen. It was very easy and absolutely delicious! Even my husband loves it, and he is very particular. The Stollen will now become part of our Christmas dessert tradition. It is true, the "Buttery Sweet Dough" emulsion adds an extra layer of flavor. I also used the "Fiori di Sicilia" flavoring...just divine! For the fruit, I used dried cranberries, with apricots and dates, diced in small pieces.Thank you for this recipe. I cannot wait to bake it again, and give as gifts.
- 12/01/2011
- I had sent in some earlier comments - love this stollen, very tasty and easy to make! I had a question that I forgot to submit earlier. Is there any particular reason to use part-skim ricotta? I happen to have some whole milk ricotta on hand and would love to use it. I just wondered if you had done the testing with both types of ricotta and had a reason for specifying part skim. Thanks again for another great recipe!
Part-skim is lower fat, better for you health-wise, and doesn't seem to make a difference in texture. You may use your full-fat ricotta. Enjoy! Elisabeth
11/22/2011- call me crazy but I much prefer Betsy's stollen. And I always soak my fruit in rum for 3 days before use (helps to preserve freshness) and spread a liberal amount of almond paste in center before folding over. Great!
- 10/24/2011
- Every year, I make stollen using a KA cookbook recipe, and it is absolutely delicious - wonderful texture and fragrance, light and moist. Just for fun, I decided to try this recipe. Followed the recipe exactly but used a mixture of raisins and the KA european candied orange. Recipe was very easy to make. Stollen had a delicious, moist texture. Family loved it, but it is really not a replacement for traditional yeast-risen stollen - just another delicious bread that we will enjoy. One question - when these came out of the oven, I brushed them with melted butter and used the non-melting confectioner's sugar (which is now just about the only confectioner's sugar I use!). When the loaves cooled, the instructions said to brush again with butter and re-dust with powdered sugar. When I started brushing with melted butter, it was difficult to do and simply messed up the first coating, so I did not continue with the second coating. Any advice on how to give the stollen a second coating of melted butter/sugar? Is it really necessary?
If you are using non-melting sugar and get a good first coat, you don't have to do a second coat. It would definitely be bakers choice. MJR @ KAF
- 06/12/2011
- Ok, I'm up to six batches of this recipe, and continue to get rave reviews and requests for more! For my next batch, I think I'm going to use the tropical fruit blend soaked in coconut rum and replace the almonds with macadamia nuts.
One question, though. Soaking the fruit first adds a lot of flavor, but it also makes the dough quite a bit stickier. If I add some flour, at what point do I need to increase the ratios of the other ingredients?
Oh, and the Fleur de Sicilia makes a big difference. I ordered some and added it to the last batch and the reviews were 'the best yet!'
Wow, it sound like you are really enjoying this recipe. Like you, I could eat stollen year round. I would allow your soaked fruit to drain well before adding. If you are adding 10-15 % more flour to your recipe to compensate, you may want to consider not soaking your fruit as long, squeezing some of the liquid out or try using a blend of all purpose flour and bread flour. The bread flour will help absorb some of the moisture given off by the fruit. Start with subbing in 10% bread flour for all purpose in your recipe. That should not change the tender texture you have come to appreciate. Elisabeth
- 05/06/2011
- A friend asked me to make her a 'holiday bread.'. From what she described I guessed it was a stollen. I made a couple of these and not only did my family and friends love it, the friend who asked for it thought it was fantastic. The only adjustment I made was to soak the fruit in spiced rum for a couple hours before adding it to the dough. Very easy to make and tastes great.
- 05/04/2011
- This was an easy recipe and was absolutely delicious! My family loved it and I will definitely make it again!!!
- 12/27/2010
- I concur with the other comments - this was very, very easy and the result was wonderful. (I consider myself an intermediate cook and baker.) We added raisons, dried cranberries and dried pineapple (almonds, too). My husband said he likes this better than the store-bought Stollen. I think this is because it was freshly baked...not a few weeks old like some of them are. I know this Stollen would never last more than a few days in our house (although we did eat the last of it the next day, and it was just as flavorful). Thank you, KAF!
