Daring Bakers: Stollen

Do you have those lists?  You know, those lists of things you need to bake, dishes you need to cook, books you need to read, movies you need to see, mountains you have to climb?  Well, I do.  And stollen just so happened to be on my “to bake” list.  But how was I ever going to find the opportunity to stollen when the season for it was so elusive?  One moment, your heart is filled with holiday cheer and you are baking for friends and family left and right and above and behind and north west and south east and then before you can even take down the Christmas lights, you’re on a “diet” to cleanse yourself of all those holiday goodies.

Which is precisely why I love Daring Bakers.  Who cares if I barely have the time to make the dough because I’m baking and packaging 200 cookies and 100 caramels for my classmates?  So what if I have a physics test I should study for?  I’ve got to get that stollen done before the dead line or else face disappointment in myself.  And disappointment in myself is worse than getting a bag of coal for christmas.  At least you can use coal as a means for self defense or heat.  Disappointment won’t give you anything at all.  Except for that empty, gnawing hole in your heart that always lets that darn cold draft chill you to the core.

But christmas is a time of cheer and whole, warm hearts, not ones with holes and drafts, so disappointment was not (and never will be) an option.  So I made the stollen.  And here is is.  In all of it’s dried fruit, zesty, doughy, nutty magnificence.  I cut the recipe in half and made half into stollen cinnamon rolls filled with a mixture of butter, brown sugar, toasted almonds, and a drop of almond extract.  I then glazed them wish a powdered sugar glaze (mixed with a tablespoon or so of milk) flavored with another splash of almond extract.  I made the other half into a traditional stollen wreath dusted with powdered sugar.  Thank you Penny from Sweet Sadie’s Baking! If you would like the recipe, check out her blog and have a very happy (disappointment and coal free) holidays!