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!