Stollen the Sheffield Way

Yep, another Christmas recipe. Obviously after the excess of Christmas what you really need is to bake cake. Well, maybe not, but this is a very good and very easy Stollen recipe. It's not exactly authentic as rather than having a bar of marzipan rolled at the centre of the loaf as tradition would have it, this version has a swirl of marzipan inside created by rolling up dough and marzipan swiss-roll style. This creates a lovely, even hit of almond in every bite and the whole of the thin marzipan layer melts into the cake beautifully. I can claim no credit for this innovation, it was produced on the spur of the moment by a friend in Sheffield while I was staying over at their place last week. Naturally baking Stollen together is what one does when one visits friends - well if you're me anyway :)

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas, I think this will be the last festive recipe and I'll offer a few savoury things soon as I realise that this blog is already getting sugar heavy!

Sheffield Stollen


Ingredients

1/2 tsp Fast acting yeast

250g Strong white flour

1 tbsp Sugar

25g Butter

1 tbsp Milk powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1 Medium egg

100 ml Water (warm water if making the dough by hand)

100g Mixed dried fruit (sultanas, raisins, mixed peel etc as you like)

150g Marzipan (a slice from a shop bought block is fine)

Icing sugar for rolling and dusting.

A little extra butter for glazing. 

Method
Bread Machine Version
1. If you have a bread machine, put the yeast, flour, sugar, butter, milk powder, salt, egg and water into the bread machine pan and set the machine to the dough or fruit dough programme. If your machine has an automatic fruit dispenser, put the dried fruits in there.

2. Run the dough programme and add the dried fruit at the appropriate point in the cycle. Let the whole cycle run and then take the finished dough onto the rolling stage.

Hand Version
1. Melt the butter and then cool slightly. Warm the water, but make sure it's well below boiling point otherwise you'll kill the yeast.

2. Mix together the flour, salt, sugar, milk powder and yeast in a large bowl.

3. Add the warm water, melted butter, egg and fruit to the mixture. The mixture should come together as a not too sticky dough.

4. Kneed the dough on a floured surface for about 10 minutes until it becomes, smooth and elastic. Roll the dough into a ball.

5. Lightly butter a clean bowl and put in the dough ball. Cover the bowl with cling film and then place the bowl in a warm and draft free place to prove. This should take about an hour and a half. The dough should be puffed up and soft to the touch. Now you're ready for the rolling stage.

Rolling the Stollen
1. While the dough is proving, butter a 2lb loaf tin.

2. When the dough is ready, lightly flour a work surface and turn out the dough on to it. Pat the dough down and then using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a roughly 6 inch by 9 inch rectangle. Don't worry about getting this perfect, just make sure that the short sides are not longer than your loaf tin.

3. Now dust another portion of your work top with icing sugar. Take the marzipan and kneed it gently to make it malleable. Flatten out the marzipan with your hand into a thick rectangle. Now roll the marzipan until it makes a rectangle slightly smaller than the bread dough. Keep lifting the marzipan as you go and re-dusting the worktop with icing sugar. The marzipan gets very thin and if you don't do this it will stick to the worktop and rip when you try to lift it at the end of rolling.

4. Once you've finished rolling the marzipan, lift it and place it on top of the bread dough.

5. Roll the dough up from one of the short sides, just as if you were making a swiss roll. Squeeze together the open ends of the dough and tuck underneath the body of the roll.

6. Take the dough roll and place it seam-side down into the prepared loaf tin.

7. Cover the tin loosely with a lightly oiled piece of cling film and leave the dough to prove again in a warm place for between and hour and an hour and a half. The dough should again be nicely puffed up and filling the tin.

8. As the dough reaches the end of proving, get the oven pre-heated to 220 C / Gas 7.

9. Bake the Stollen for 15-20 minutes in the centre of the oven until it is golden brown.

10. Leave the Stollen in the tin for a few minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack. While still hot, turn the Stollen back over and brush the top with some melted butter and then dust well with icing sugar.

11. Let the Stollen cool completely and then enjoy!

A swirl of marzipan rolled into the Stollen. Nom!

White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies

Another Christmas recipe. I made these for the work Christmas party in addition to to the Mincemeat Shortbread. I like to have cookies quite crisp and more biscuit like rather than soft. With this recipe it's quite easy to adjust the finished consistency by changing the baking time. For soft biscuits go for around 10-12 minutes, for crispy ones, try around 18-20 minutes. Keep an eye on the biscuits if you bake them for the longer period as they catch around the edges very easily.

This recipe makes about 20 cookies, depending on how generous you are when spooning out the mixture.

White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies


Ingredients
4 oz Butter, softened.
3 oz Soft, light brown sugar.
2 tbsp Golden syrup.
6 oz Self raising flour.
1/2 tsp Ground ginger.
3 oz White chocolate chips (or dark or milk as you prefer)
1 oz Dried cranberries.
2 tbsp Milk.

Method
1. Heat oven to 180 C, Gas 4. Grease a couple of baking trays.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy.

3. Add in all the remaining ingredients and beat well until everything is well mixed.

4. Drop teaspoons of the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets. Allow space for the cookies to spread during cooking.

5. Bake for 10-12 or 18-20 minutes in the centre of the pre-heated oven, depending on how crisp you want the cookies.

6. Once baked, leave the cookies on the trays for a minute and then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

Mincemeat Shortbread

We had our Christmas party at work last week and I did a little baking. As I had some of my homemade mincemeat left (see previous post) I decided to do something a little different to mince pies. This mincemeat shortbread is really easy to do, delicious and can be made just as well with shop bought mincemeat. I'll put up the recipe for my other bit of party baking - White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies - next week :)


Mincemeat Shortbread


Ingredients:
4 oz Butter, softened
2 oz Golden Caster sugar
6 oz Plain flour
4 tbsp Mincemeat

Method:
1. Grease a 7" round sandwich tin with butter. Preheat the oven to 170 C or Gas 3.

2. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and cream together.

3. Beat in the flour and mincemeat. The mixture should come together into a large, soft ball if you work it with your hands gently. If not, add a splash of milk or a little more mincemeat to moisten it.

4. Press the mixture into the prepared sandwich tin, flattening it out with your fingers.

5. Mark around the edge with a fork, score 8 - 10 slices into the surface and prick the dough all over with a fork (see picture).

6. Place in the oven for 35-40 minutes until nicely browned.

7. Take tin from the oven. The cooked biscuits will still be quite soft. Use this opportunity to cut along the scored slice lines with a sharp knife. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes longer and then turn the biscuits on to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Cookie Monster in the Library

Just in case anybody was wondering about the connection between Cookie Monsters and Librarians, here it is :-)

(You can also find this and lots more Sesame Street videos on the official Sesame Street channel on YouTube - go on you know you want to take a look!)

First Post - Last Minute Christmas Mincemeat

Well I do a lot of cooking and I've collected an awful lot of cook books and recipes. Over time I've adjusted, created, chopped and changed many of my recipes to suit me. However, I'm not so good at writting down what I've actually done, which is annoying when I want to repeat something and embarrasing when a friend asks for the recipe. Hence, I think sharing some recipes on here is a good way to try and solve both problems, I'll get ideas written down and I'll have somewhere to send friends to for downloading the recipes!

Since it's nearly Christmas, I'm going to start with a 'cheat' Christmas mincemeat. The cheat bit is that this version of mincemeat does not require weeks of maturing in jars before it's ready to use. This is really handy if, like me, you have a tiny place to live and don't happen to have room for 4 or 5 jars of mincemeat in your already precariously over-stuffed cupboards. This recipe is also a bit different in that it contains no extra fats and very little sugar. It's far less sweet and sticky than shop bought varieties, rather its very tangy and fruity tasting but still has enough mixed spices and brandy to have a rich, festive flavour! This recipe originally came from a WI cookbook but I've tweaked the original quite a bit so this is my adapted version.

Last Minute Christmas Mincemeat

Ingredients:

2 lb mixed dried fruit (currents, raisins, sultanas, mixed peel etc)

1 lb cooking apples (Bramleys work well), peeled and coarsely grated

2 1/2 tsp ground mixed spice

1 pt Medium sweet or dry cider (invest in a decent bottle - it's worth it)

Grated zest of 1 orange

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 1/2 orange

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2-3 oz of soft, dark brown sugar (you might need a bit more if the apple is especially tart)

3-4 tbsp of Brandy

Method:

1. Mix together all the ingredients EXCEPT the Brandy in a large pan.

2. Bring to the boil and then simmer gently, uncovered for 30 - 40 minutes. Stir occasionally. By this time most of the liquid will have either evaporated or have been absorbed into the fruit making it plump and juicy. The grated apple should have been reduced to a sticky pulp. During this process your house will also smell like it's been sprayed with essence of Christmas. Open your kitchen windows and let your neighbours get a whiff.

3. Remove the pan from the heat. Cover with a lid and leave to cool down for a couple of hours.

4. Clean and sterilise 4-6 glass jars (depending on size) or get a nice clean plastic tub ready.

5. Stir the brandy into the mincemeat and then decant the mixture into the prepared jars or tub. Seal tightly and then store in the fridge for 4-5 weeks (and give some away to nice friends if you have too much).

The mincemeat is ready to use once it's completely cooled down. Do be aware you can't keep this mincemeat for ages, 4-5 weeks is about the limit and it does need to stay in the fridge. Otherwise, use exactly as you would regular mincemeat.