Marzipanstollen

You should bake this moist Christmas stollen just in time for Advent (Sun, Dec 1, 2024 – Tue, Dec 24, 2024) to sweeten the festive season for you and your family. Marzipan, raisins, roasted almonds and candied orange peel make it a delicious and festive treat. If you are not a fan of raisins, you can either leave them out or you can replace them with other dried fruit such as cranberries, chopped dates, apricots or sour cherries. To soak the raisins you can also use water or apple juice instead of rum, so the children and pregnant women will also be able to enjoy it. Both candied orange peel and bitter almond extract are classics in a traditional stollen, but they are not so popular with some people. You can omit both and your marzipanstollen will still be great. Enjoy it with a glass of mulled wine or a cup of coffee.

Dough	Marzipan Filling and Dusting
100 g Raisins 50 ml Rum 75 g Almonds, chopped 45 g Candied orange peel 150 ml Warm milk 20 g Fresh yeast (or 7 g dried yeast) 500 g White spelt flour (Dinkel #630) 90 g Xylitol or regular sugar 1 tbsp Vanilla sugar 1 tsp Cinnamon A large pinch of cardamom, ground A pinch of Mmace blossom powder A pinch of sea salt A few drops of bitter almond extract 2 Medium eggs 100 g Butter, softened	400 g Marzipan 100 g Butter 100 g Icing sugar plus some to roll the marzipan

Soak the raisins in rum and roast the chopped almonds in a non-stick pan until golden brown. Finely chop the candied orange peel.
Heat the milk to lukewarm and then dissolve a little sugar and crumble the fresh yeast in it. Set aside for 10 minutes.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, mix the spelt flour, remaining sugar, vanilla sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, mace blossom powder and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the bitter almond extract, eggs, softened butter and yeast milk into the well. Knead everything into a soft, elastic dough for 6 to 8 minutes using a dough hook.
Drain the raisins and add into the dough together with the almonds and candied orange peel. Knead until well combined. Cover the dough and leave to rest in a warm place for 60 to 80 minutes until the dough has doubled in volumn.
Remove the dough from the bowl and knead again on a lightly floured work surface. Roll out the dough into a 35x45 cm rectangle about 1 cm thick (or divide the dough in half if you prefer a smaller stollen and roll out each into a 20 x 25 cm rectangle to a thickness of 1 cm).
Lightly dust the work surface and rolling pin with icing sugar and roll out the raw marzipan mixture slightly smaller than the dough.
Lay the marzipan on the dough and roll it up from both short sides towards the centre. Roll one side slightly further over the centre so that one side is higher and the other slightly lower.
Lift the raw marzipanstollen onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, brush with a little water press them together. Cover and leave to rest for 30 to 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and bake the stollen in the middle of the oven. As soon as the top of the stollen is golden brown, cover it loosely with a piece of aluminium foil or baking paper.
Melt the butter and set aside. Remove the stollen from the oven and brush immediately with the melted butter. Leave the stollen to cool and sprinkle generously with icing sugar. Ideally, wrap the marzipanstollen in an airtight container and leave to stand for 1 week on your kitchen counter.

3 comments:

DEZMOND 24/11/24 13:12: It looks lovely and you did lovely design with the red berries, although I must admit I have never understood the appeal of marzipan and nugat as well.
Tom 24/11/24 13:38: ...this is a wonderful treat!
My name is Erika. 24/11/24 14:00: Yum, yum, yum. I need to make a stollen. It's so tasty. And you asked why I want turkeys in my yard. I live in a very rural area, and the turkeys wander around from yard to yard and in the woods. I feed them cracked corn just to help them out, and I throw the corn away from the house into the woods so I don't get unwanted critters like mice at the house. They don't stay, and when I open the door they wander away off into the woods faster than the dogs can catch them. Or they fly up into trees. They're just fun to watch. Thanks for asking. HAve a super start to the new week.