Stollen (German Christmas bread), with icing recipe at the end familyrecipes

(Baker beware, this is a yeast bread and a bit challenging)

Lily Haskell's Stollen

Ingredients

• 2 cups buttermilk + ½ tsp baking soda


• ½ cup sugar


• 1 tsp salt


• 2 packets of yeast dissolved in ½ cup warm water


• 2 or 3 eggs*


• ½ cup margarine or butter


• 7 cups white flour – measured separately in advance


• 1 lb candied fruit (fruitcake fruit) or mixed dried fruit such as dried cherries or dried cranberries. Candied fruit is traditional

Directions

1. Heat the 2 cups of buttermilk in a saucepan on the stove until small bubbles form around the edge (this is called scalding). Remove from heat, let cool for a few minutes (it doesn't have to be cold) and add ½ tsp baking soda – foaming will occur.


2. Add the stick of butter to the buttermilk and let it melt. This cools the milk and heats the butter.


3. Proof the yeast by putting ½ cup of warm water in a mixing bowl and sprinkling in two packets of yeast. Stir it around to dissolve. Sprinkling a pinch of sugar over the top will make it proof faster. Let it sit for a bit until it gets bubbly.


4. Beat three eggs. When you see that the yeast is bubbly, add the milk and butter mixture, the three beaten eggs and 1 tsp salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix.


5. Start adding the flour one cup at a time and mix it – you’ll start with a whisk and end with a wooden spoon. When you get to between 5 and 6 cups of flour, the dough will start to pull away from the sides of the bowl and the gluten will have rendered the dough rather rubbery. It will be hard to stir with a spoon. At this point, stop adding flour to the dough and instead dump the rest of the flour you have on a clean surface, and then dump the dough on top of the flour. Then knead it, working in the flour until it no longer stick to your hands – this will take 5-10 minutes.


6. Keep kneading it until it’s silky in texture and until it no longer seems to need flour to keep from sticking to your hands and the counter. You’ll know it’s done when you poke the dough with your finger and the dough kind of springs back – the hole is filled relatively quickly. Patience is a virtue when kneading yeast bread.


7. Clean out the bowl, wash it and dry it. Use butter or vegetable oil or oil spray to grease the inside of the bowl. Take the dough and put it in the bowl and then turn it over so there’s some oil/butter on the surface of the dough.


8. Take a clean dish towel and get it wet. Squeeze it out so it’s damp but not dripping. Lay the towel over the top of the bowl and put the bowl in a warm place. Leave it alone – this is the first rising. It should almost double in bulk; this will take about an hour and a half.


9. You know it has finished rising when you poke the dough and the hole does not fill in.


10. When it’s done rising, dump it out on the clean surface again and punch it down a little bit.


11. Dump your lb of fruit on top of the dough. Knead it lightly for a few minutes just so it’s spread throughout the dough evenly (this is more difficult than you’d think).


12. Return the dough to the bowl, replace the damp towel, and allow the dough to rise again. It will take longer this time. Tip: the second rise with the fruit in it can be done overnight in the refrigerator. We think a cold rise allows the yeast to create a finer texture.


13. When it doubles in bulk again, dump it out onto the floured counter again and punch out the bubbles. Cut the dough into three or four even pieces, depending on how many loaves you want.


14. Correct the shape of the cut pieces so they’re roughly oblong oval loaves.


15. Take 2-3 tablespoons of softened butter (per loaf) and smear it all over the top of the dough.


16. Fold the dough three times, as if you were folding a letter to put it in an envelope.


17. Seal the edges by pinching, turn in the ends to make it look nice, and turn it over onto a greased cookie sheet so that the folds don’t show. Let it rise again.


18. The third rising will take about an hour. Then bake it in a preheated oven at 375°F for ~30 minutes or less until it’s nicely browned on all sides (check underneath). Unless you have multiple ovens you will need to put the other 2-3 loaves in the refrigerator to hold them while it’s baking.


19. Put the loaf on a cooling rack. When cool, decorate with homemade icing (see recipe below), and nuts and candied fruit. We usually use pecans, halved maraschino cherries and pieces of green candied fruit to create designs that look like branches.

*Unless we’re in another Great Depression, use 3 eggs, and use butter instead of margarine.

Homemade icing recipe

Ingredients

• White confectionary (powdered) sugar


• Heavy cream


• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions

Start with about 2 cups of confectionary sugar and add heavy cream until it creates a very soft icing. Exact proportions unknown – make it to taste.

Submitted January 11, 2015 at 08:11PM by northraxredux http://ift.tt/1y2Nu6F familyrecipes