Recipe: Stollen

Do you know, I've not baked or eaten a single mince pie this year. But this morning I baked a delicious stollen and by FLIP it is lush!

I used a mish-mash of several recipes and I heartily recommend a slice of this delicious cakey-bread with a cup of tea and a lovely Christmas film; I opted for A Muppet Christmas Carol.

Stollen

Ingredients

100ml milk

1 x 7g sachet of dried yeast

Good pinch of salt

1 teaspoon caster sugar

225g strong white bread flour

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

200g mixed dried fruit*

25g flaked almonds

50g unsalted butter

1 free range egg

250g marzipan

*I used a mix of sultanas, currants, raisins, dried cranberries, candied peel and quartered glace cherries

To finish:

25g melted unsalted butter

40g icing sugar

Method

Gently heat the milk and 50g butter in a saucepan.

Mix the dried fruit together with the vanilla extract and the mixed spice.

In a large bowl mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar and make a well in the centre. 

Your milk and butter mixture should be warm but not hot. You should be able to hold your finger in it comfortably. When it is at this point crack the egg into the milk and butter and beat well with a fork.

Add your milk, butter and egg mixture to your flour mixture and stir to combine. Add your dried fruit, vanilla and spice mix and combine everything thoroughly. If you've got a swanky electric mixer you can do all this mixing with a dough hook. If you haven't, use a spoon and your hands like I do.

Turn your mixture out onto a well-floured surface and knead it well for about ten minutes. Yes, it is sticky. Yes, you will need to add more flour to stop the dough sticking to the kitchen. Yes, you will get messy hands but heck, enjoy it and have fun!

Transfer your dough to an oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Put the bowl in a warm place (an airing cupboard or your oven on the defrost setting is good) and leave to prove until the dough has doubled in size. This can take anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour and a half.

When the dough is all puffed up, knock it back (squish and knead the air out of it) and then turn it out onto a floured surface. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough to a rough rectangle shape about 9 inches by 7 inches.

Roll your marzipan into a sausage slightly shorter than the long side of your dough rectangle. Dust the work surface with icing sugar whilst you shape the marzipan.

Place your marzipan sausage on the dough and fold the dough over it and seal the ends and the long edge by dampening them with a little water and squidging them together.

Put your stollen, seam side down, on a baking-paper-lined baking tray and gently pat back into shape if needs be. Cover the stollen with oiled clingflim.

Leave it to prove again for about thirty minutes. You don't want it to double in size but you want it to puff up a bit.

Heat your oven to 180°C (160°C for fan ovens) and then bake your stollen for about 25 to 30 minutes or until it is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

Whilst the stollen is still hot, brush it with the 25g of melted butter and then immediately sift the icing sugar over the top.

Leave to cool (but for quality control purposes do try a slice whilst it is still warm and the marzipan is all oozy) and serve sliced.

Best eaten by the twinkling light of the Christmas tree.

'Kimono', baking, baking and baking

The bright colours and stylised design on these beads remind me of Japanese kimono fabrics.

These comfy-to-wear lentils are made in translucent purple glass, dusted with purple enamel and decorated with dark brown branches and orange blooms and blossom. They are only decorated on one side so they would be lovely turned into a bracelet.

The 'Kimono' beads are for sale right now over in the usual place.

So, Christmas is nearly upon us. My fridge is empty, bar three jars of pesto, half a pint of milk, a jar of horseradish sauce and the guinea pigs' lettuce, carrot and apple. This means I have to go and do THE food shop of the year. Chris is currently in Manchester but I'm hoping he'll be home later and then the Chrimble preparations can finally start.

I've got to marzipan my cake today. I'm also going to make a stollen and some biscotti. I've been baking like a mad thing recently, with good reason; I have an audition for The Great British Bake Off in January. It was supposed to have been this week but a mix-up with a double booking by the audition venue meant that they had to postpone it. But yes, I've been baking like a crazy baking person.

I've made some hand-raised pies that I've been really proud of. Hot water crust pastry is a doddle to make but flipping heck, shaping it into a pie case is not easy. That ceramics module of my Art A-Level finally came in handy! This chicken and bacon pie with homemade sage and onion stuffing (which is a Mrs Beeton recipe) was my second attempt and my goodness it tasted yum!

I have become addicted to baking sour cherry and almond biscotti.

I've also been making cinnamon bread and Chelsea buns. These ones are quite Christmassy as they contain orange and cranberries. The icing is orange too. Tell you what, though, they weren't half sweet and it's not often you hear pudding monster me utter those "too sweet" words. Nice, though.

So yeah, I've been drowning in baked goods. I've sent some to friends, Chris has taken some to work and I even took some to Slimming World for our little Christmas party thing. I KNOW. That makes zero sense but when you cut a pie into very small pieces and you halve slices of biscotti it becomes less naughty to eat. Or something ...

I keep thinking about what Mum would say about my baking. I honestly don't think she'd believe it. She'd find it hilarious that I'm having a go at entering a cookery competition, I know that!

Right, time to get on and DO something. I have a to-do list as long as The Nile and I need to be crossing things off it.

Have a good Saturday!

'Champagne'

I bought quarter of a kilo of odd-lot Vetrofond glass about five years ago. It is the palest transparent yellow but the rods are about 12mm diameter which makes it awkward to work with.

These 'Champagne' beads are the last of that glass. I've etched the beads to a velvety finish and I've included some shimmery spacers. The set is for sale in the usual place along with a few other sets.

'Sugar Plum'

Pretty etched purple beads with twinkly mauve spacers. These are available on my Freshly Baked Beads page right now.

New Beads

I've just added these vibrant 'Orange & Blackcurrant' beads and ...

... these 'Ancient' ones to the Freshly Baked Beads page.