German Christmas Fruit Bread

Ingredients

• 357 g Flour (or 2 3/4 cup)
• 165 ml Warm Milk (or 3/4 cup + 1 tsp)
• 1 Egg
• 3 g Instant yeast (1 tsp(Active dry yeast 1 and 1/4 tsp))
• 5.9 g Salt (1 tsp)
• 42.6 g Melted Butter (or 3 tbsp)
• 32 g Sugar (or 2 1/2 tbsp or more according to your preference)
• 170 g Raisins ( around 1 cup)
• 90 g Candied citrus peel (around 1/2 cup)
• 80 g Glaze Cherries ((optional) around 1/2 cup)
• 56 g Roasted slivered almonds (around 1/2 cup)
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon Powder
• 1/4 tsp Cardamom powder
• 1/4 tsp Nutmeg Powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla Sugar or Extract (or vanilla seed from 1 vanilla pod)
• Zest of one Lemon

Method

1. Into a bowl, add in the milk (slightly warm ideally around 95 F) ,egg, sugar, salt, yeast and stir to dissolve the ingredients in milk.
2. Add in the melted butter.Add the flour into the liquid mix.Stir and combine.Make sure there are no dry patches left behind.We need to combine everything together to form a shaggy mass of dough.
3. Wrap the bowl with a plastic film and let the dough stand rise in a warm environment for 1 hour or until it gets almost doubled in size.This proofing time may vary according to the ambient temperature.If the room temperature is cold, it may take around 1 and 1/2 hours.
4. While the stollen bread dough is proofing ,prepare the dry fruit mix.Into a bowl, add in the raisins, glaze cherries, candied citrus peel, slivered almonds.Then add in the special ingredients that uplift the flavors of this Christmas stollen bread; ground cinnamon ,cardamom, nutmeg ,vanilla and zest of one lemon.Mix it all together and our dry fruit mix for the German stollen bread is ready.Cover it and keep it aside.
5. Shape the stollen bread dough
6. After One hour of rising, our stollen dough has risen slightly.Now incorporate the dry fruit mix into the dough.I pulled the dough from sides of bowl and folded it into the center.Thus we can incorporate the fruits into the dough and simultaneously can deflate the dough.After deflating the dough and mixing the dry fruits ,let’s shape the stollen bread.
7. HOW TO SHAPE STOLLEN :GERMAN CHRISTMAS FRUIT BREADI divided the dough into two equal parts.If you like to make a bigger stollen bread you don’t need to divide the dough.(The baking duration for large stollen bread will be slightly more :around 8-10 minutes)
8. Flatten the dough, roll and form the dough into two cylinders.Press or roll each piece into a rectangle of approximately 1 inch thick.Now press in the middle of the dough using a thin rolling pin and then go around 1 and 1/2 inches to one of the sides to create a trench.
9. So that when we fold the dough one over the other, the top part will stay closed smoothly and not completely overlapping the one under.Now, using rolling pin or using the edge of your hand, press down along the length of the stollen.This will help the dough to stay intact while proofing and baking and will also help to create that characteristic hump that we see in a typical German stollen.Now our Christmas fruit bread is ready for the next step.So cover it with a cling film and let it sit and rise in a warm environment.
10. Let the dough sit and rise in warm environment for 70-80 minutes.As this Christmas Stollen bread contain lot of dry fruits, it take a little longer than regular breads to rise.So after 80 minutes, our dough has risen well.(If your place is cold, then it may take 10 more minutes to rise)It is ready to go into the oven for baking.
11. Bake the Fruit bread at 350 F or 180 C preheated oven for 40 minutes.The top of the fruit bread or fruit loaf will start browning at around 30 minutes of baking.It doesn’t mean our dry fruit bread is done.At this point if we take it out, the center of the fruit yeast bread will have a doughy texture and it will smell very “yeasty”So wait for until the fruit bread is baked properly.When the fruit bread is done, take the tray out from the oven.
12. How to treat the baked stollen/German Christmas fruit bread
13. Let the Christmas fruit loaf sit for 2-3 minutes in the baking tray itself.Then take the stollen and place on a wire rack.While it is still warm, smear the whole surface of baked stollen generously with melted butter.
14. Immediately sprinkle with granulated sugar (if we use powdered sugar it will easily dissolve with the butter).
15. Let the stollen cool completely.When it is completely cooled, dust the surface of stollen generously with powdered sugar.
16. When you eat them on the same day or next day, the stollen will have a lighter and softer texture like a fruit bread but when we take it after 2 weeks it has a dense texture but deep flavor more like a Christmas pastry.Enjoy!