Not So Stollen
This So Not Stollen is based on a modification to a real Dresden Christmas Stollen recipe that was posted by nellapower here: Refer to it for most of the method with a few exceptions below.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25407/dresden-christmas-stollen
I just figured that if you replaced the commercial yeast with SD it would be SD Stollen and if you replaced some of the white flour with other grains..... it would be SD Multi-grain Stollen? But others might not think so.
I'd be surprised there isn't a SD multi-grain stollen out there somewhere since just about everything in the bread world has already been done by some baker like nellapower already. But it might be called something else like Sourdough Multi-grain Dried Fruit Bread.
Of course that is not all my apprentice did to this recipe either. She is diabolical with her changes and modifications – and can’t be stopped when she gets rolling along. She wasn't sure SD alone could lift this lump of multi-grain properly so...... instead of the commercial yeast in the recipe we threw in some YW into the SD levain to give it an uplifting boost.
We used a 24 hour 1% starter counter top levian build with all of the whole grains (30%) in the levain. I think long slow levain builds with whole grains enhance the flavor and sour of the bread. We used home ground spelt, rye, kamut and some farina for fun. We made our own citrus peels by taking off the skin only with a XOX veggie peeler and boiled them 3 times before drying them and coating them in home made vanilla sugar.
We upped the alcohol some by adding some home made limoncello and arancello to enhance the orange and lemon peel and also used the traditional dark rum and amaretto too - in total about 50% more proportionally so...... no water was required in the fruit soak. The fruit soaked up all the hooch but it was still wet.
She decided to cut back some of the dried fruits a little and added walnuts and pistachios in their place for a little crunch. She also added a large amount of YW marinated apple and cherry pieces used to feed the YW (that we had frozen previously) to get closer to the original recipe fruit amounts. We found them hanging out in the freezer door doing nothing but talking up precious Holiday freezer space – so in they went..
To cut some of the fat, not that it reduces it much with all the butter and lard in this recipe, we replaced some of the cream with Mexican Media Creama. We really like the flavor of it in flans and thought it would work well here too. She decided to replace some of the white sugar with dark brown sugar hoping it would pair better with the dark rum which is still made from molasses if you buy the good stuff - but this dark rum wasn't good enough for that.
We added some nutmeg to the spice list too thinking a little more spice would go well with the extra liquors. We forgot to add the ground almonds to the fruit to sop of some of its wetness and put it into the dough flour by mistake. So, we added 125 g or bench flour when we added the fruits to keep the overall hydration closer to the original. We ended up using 50 g more hooch than we should have according to the recipe.
We were basically cutting this recipe in half and the kneading would have been easier with half a lump but, also we changed the methods slightly by cutting in all the fat into the flours before adding the 2 creams. The creams were supposed to be part of the levains but, with theYW in the levain, we used water there instead.
This made the kneading easy since we could do 15 minutes of slap and folds before adding in the fruits and nuts and the 125 g of bench flour. The dough tightened itself back up as we folded the add ins into the dough. This method is much closer to short crust pasty and stollen is much closer to short crust pasty than it is to bread if you ask me.
We retarded the bulk dough in the fridge overnight after allowing it to proof on the counter for 2 hours. We shaped the dough right after coming out of the fridge and allowed it to proof for 8 more hours on the counter before baking.
We made the dough into 2 boules because they needed to fit in the round tin my apprentice found in the garage. My apprentice thinks she is related no only to Emperess Ying but also to Rin Tin Tin. So finding one was easier for her than it would have been for me.
These Not So Stollen will be wrapped in cotton cloth and placed for 6 weeks in a beautiful blue holiday tin with silver snowflakes. It held last year’s Holiday Topsy’s Pop Corn from KCMO and Lucy saved it for a reason like this.. The outside temperatures at night have finally gone into the 40’s and the daytime temps are in the mid 70’s so we hope that will do for the stollen siesta.
We baked it for 1 ½ hours at 350 F and turned off the oven when the stolen hot 203 F. We didn’t know what temperature it was supposed to be in the inside and we had to cover the Not So Stollen at the 50 minute mark so it wouldn’t get too brown. They spread rather than sprang but they will still fit in the tin, yea!! This Not SO Stollen looks and smells terrific and not being able to eat it for 6 weeks…… should be illegal !!
Once again, we are getting pretty far away from the nellapower’s original recipe for this Modified Dresden Christmas Stollen even though they are still quite similar in concept except for these minor changes :-) I do plan on storing it for 6 weeks wrapped in cotton like a stollen, even though thsi probably isnlt one. The Not So Stollen is the perfect name for this different, if not unusual attempt to make a stollen of some 3rd kind.
Thanks to nellapower for posting her original recipe and her help in our making something close to it conceptually.
Formula
Combo Starter | Build 1 | % |
SD Desem & Rye Sour | 2 | 0.26% |
Dark Rye | 30 | 6.00% |
AP | 20 | 4.00% |
Farina | 30 | 6.00% |
Spelt | 30 | 6.00% |
Whole Wheat | 30 | 6.00% |
Yeast Water | 8 | 1.60% |
Water | 110 | 22.00% |
Total Starter | 260 | 50.40% |
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Starter Totals |
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Hydration | 84.14% |
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Levain % of Total | 10.85% |
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Dough Flour |
| % |
Soft White Wheat | 215 | 43.00% |
AP | 285 | 57.00% |
Dough Flour | 500 | 100.00% |
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Media Creama 225 & Cream | 232 | 46.40% |
Dough Hydration | 46.40% |
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Total Flour | 766.2 |
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Total Water, Crema, Cream | 350.8 |
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T. Dough Hydration | 45.78% |
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Whole Grain % | 25.45% |
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Hydration w/ Adds | 52.04% |
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Total Weight | 2,396 |
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Add - Ins |
| % |
Lemon Peel | 35 | 4.00% |
Orange Peel | 85 | 14.00% |
Pistachios | 50 | 10.00% |
Walnuts | 50 | 10.00% |
Butter | 250 | 50.00% |
Ground Almonds | 100 | 20.00% |
Sugar 50, D. Brown Sugar 25 | 75 | 15.00% |
Red Multi-grain Malt | 2 | 0.40% |
White Multi-grain Malt | 2 | 0.40% |
YW Apple and Cherries | 150 | 30.00% |
Prunes | 50 | 10.00% |
Cranberry | 50 | 10.00% |
Apricot | 50 | 10.00% |
Raisins & Sultanas | 100 | 20.00% |
Total | 1019 | 203.80% |
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1/2 tsp Cinnamon |
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1/2 tsp Cardamon |
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1/2 tsp Nutmeg |
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1/2 tsp Mace |
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Dark Rum - 50g |
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Amaretto - 50 g |
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Limoncello - 25 g |
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Arancello - 25 g |
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Bench AP Flour -125 g |
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( B. Flour included in Total Flour and for Hydration Total) | ||
Comments
I would call this the Dabrownman variations, fun to read how you did it.
But who in his right mind would waits for weeks, until the stollen is old? I know that tradition calls for this sacrifice. But I bake them every year, and I cannot say that a stollen improves in taste the older it gets. Over a few days, it does, yes. But over six weeks?
I'd rather eat my stollen - and then bake another one.
With untraditional greetings,
Karin
and fix the spelling, grammar and syntax in my posts at least 3 times. Pathetic really. Anyway, it reads better now after the first fix.
So how many days should I wait for the the stollen to be at its peak? Not waiting 6 weeks already feels better to my apprentice since these were her variations, but she is a hard core stollen floozy and never to be trusted enough to turn your back on that ankle biter! I can't even wait 24 hours to cut rye bread most of the time. Can I freeze them like any other bread? It is a lot of hard work making this stollen stuff and I'm not sure I want to make any more for awhile and don't care too much, how much booze is in it :-) Does it make that much difference if you butter, sugar and powder sugar them? I want to try to stay as traditioanl as I can with these things- except for the waiting part.
It was all I could do to keep from throwing some hemp seed in. I had them in my hand but my apprentice said no changes were allowed for this recipe that reminder her so much of her heritage, homeland and ex husband Von Snigelfritz something aruther.....
You have to wait 4 weeks on my fruit cake but that is because once a week you pour more brandy on it and let it soak in.
Glad you finally got home, from home safe and sound after Sandy delayed your return. What a mess that still is and will be for so many for some time.
Sorry, just couldn't resist that pun. I agree with your assistant that hemp seed might have been too much. It does look beautiful and must smell heavenly. Good luck with waiting to taste...well maybe just a little trim off the end?
Last year I made Nella's Dresden stollen and found it to be wonderful. Made into two loaves, dutifully stored one and happily consumed the other as soon as it cooled. Found it to be wonderful and worth all the time and work. Particularly loved learning to portion out dough before trying to knead in fruit. A lesson that I immediately applied to my dark English style fruitcake.
Yesterday, the sisterly crew baked dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls and stollen.
I used the recipe in the 1993 holiday edition,Good Housekeeping magazine that I still bake from every year.
Of course I modified the recipe so much that I'm sure it can no longer be called Stollen-added cinnamon, orange and lemon peel. So I am calling it Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread. Lots less work and no aging needed.
Haven't bake using commercial yeast in some time. Would like to make another using sourdough. Janet, would you share your recipe?
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/stollen-2550?click=rec_sr
LOVE the pun and glad you pointed it out....I missed the one Pat did about taking the time to smell the flours in another thread and it took Glen's mentioning it for me to catch it. :-)
Janet
I added some chopped walnuts and pistachio I would be breaking some Stollen Law. The GH one has nuts and eggs too. I was going to put in an egg since most doughs that have sugar and cream also have eggs and I think one or two would help the Not So Stollen greatly. I'm sure the GH stollen could be converted to SD by taking 20% of the flour and making a SD levain with some of the milk at what ever hydration the dough is and keep the seed starter at 10% of the flour used. You girls have been busy baking yesterday. I haven't made any YW cinnamon rolls for a while and they are great for Holiday mornings.
Stollen Pleasures is terrific :-) Since you stored one last year can you tell me if you buttered and sugared it first and what was the difference between the stored and not stored one after 6 weeks?
I took the easy way out and cut in the fat into flour like a short crust pastry. Stollen sure smells like spiced pastry too!
Stollen is a lot of work but we sure learned a lot about making one by doing it. It was fun and the future taste better make it worth it!
Glad you liked the post and found stolen pleasure too!
must be like storing up blessings in heaven. A wonderful idea from which I fall short!
For last year's stored Stollen, I left it plain and unsugared. When I retrieved it from it's prison of tin, I put just a little lemon and powdered sugar glaze drizzled over it. (There I go again, messing with tradition) It was different and more custardy the older it got. Custardy in the way that the crumb of Tartine bread is custardy.
My apprentice slipped out to the porch under cover of darkness and snitched off tiny pieces several times during the 6 weeks is how I know that. This year I doubled the recipe and made one large and six small loaves. I will leave one plain and unadorned to have now, put one into the tin and the rest in the freezer for gifts. I'll put melted butter on them and coat with powdered sugar or make the glaze with lemon and powdered sugar. I think that is just enough tangy sweetness to add. Plain, it makes a great breakfast bread, my apprentice though it quite tasty. Poor thing, this morning I was unwrapping a new pkg of instant yeast and she was beside herself with joy, she must have thought it was a pound of butter, her favorite food group.
lemon powdered sugar glaze idea. Apprentices with butter on their mind come into their own during the Holidays. It seems that most everything has butter on it now a days. My wife just made some chocolate toffee nut crunch bars trying to get warmed up for the cookie fest soon to come. We always run out of butter eventually.
Thanks for the lemon sugar drizzle idea .
Just so your stollen doesn't feel lonely....all stollens made in this house are made with sd. This year I am going to use my YW to soak the fruits in since we do not have alcoholic beverages in this house. I have used it in fruit soakers in other breads and it works great. I toss in the 'used' YW fruits too because I can't stand tossing them in the trash.
Methinks that your Apprentice is too young to know of Rin Tin Tin. I suspect you have been keeping her up late nights filling her head with tales of that magnificent canine hero. I would imagine she likes him even more knowing his country of origin is the same as hers....
Thanks to Karin's suggestion I am glad that we don't have to wait 6 weeks to get report on the flavor of your stollen. I can't imagine it being anything but delicious with all of the goodies you kneaded into it. A meal unto itself - and a nutritious one too :-)
Thanks for the delightful post.
Take Care,
Janet
has the same add in fruits (just more of them) as my banana bread with the exception that the banana bread fruits are soaked in bourbon and it also has chocolate chips, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I thought long and hard about chocolate chips in stollen but it had such a large quantity of fruits, compared to teh banana bread I thought enough was enough - for once.
My apprentice is not too old to remember Rin Tin Tin in her short legged dog years being 60 but, she has plenty of forgetful dumb and plain just can't remember her German paramour, with a 2 tinny of la ast name - she has had so many and they all blend together in her mind as well. It is not her fault she was bred to be dumb enough to actually want to try to drag badgers out of holes or die trying.
Post your SD stollen recipe so we can try it out for the Holidas and see what hoorible zombie like things my apprentice can do to it!
I'm glad we don't have to wait to munch on these stollens and can eat one for Thanksgiving and one in 6 weeks. I'm dying to see what happens to it in 6 weeks. So I have to have a taste now to compare it to :-)
Thsi sure was a fun bake and it is always great to bake something new too.
The stollen recipe I use is from Peter Reinhart's book 'Whole Grain Breads'. My modification is to take 15% of the total flour and use it in as the leaven at 70% HL. I also bulk ferment the whole shebang overnight in the refrig. before shaping and baking the following day.
Not any where near as elaborate as yours is. I get easily overwhelmed by too many ingredients and my assistants are not always as good as your is when it comes to helping me out....especially when it comes to cleaning up anything other than the floor.
Janet
apprentice you have. Mine's not very good at cleaning except the floor like yours. It must be a baker's apprentice union thing. But, if you try to stop her from her floor cleaning duty, she get's pretty surly. My baking ingredient list gets out of hand pretty quick and easy. Your SD stollen adaptation from Whole Grain Breads sounds like a sane one and I'm sure plain delicious, as opposed to So not Stollen. Sometimes less can really be more .....when it's not just less and this might be one of those cases :-)
Sadly, the less is more Architectural Crowd, so prevalent not too long ago, made our buildings sterile, uninviting, unadorned, boring and just plain inhuman. It was just a fad that thankfully so many things are in the world.
That's one (of the two) I usually bake, too. Like Janet, I bulk ferment the stollen overnight.
As a German, I had stollen all my life, and this version, with almond paste and rum, is wonderfully moist and tasty. What you buy in stores is usually overly sweet, bland and dry. If I can't get it, I also make my own candied citrus peel.
Karin
Karin,
Last year I made my own citrus peel. This year I am being lazy due to other demands etc...I couldn't find any locally that looked decent so I bit the bullet and ordered some from KA. Came a couple of days ago and looks good to me now I just have to wait and see how it bakes up. They even have a mix that has citron in it which I can't get anywhere around here so I ordered that too...You might check it out if you are so inclined :-)
Good to hear that PR's stollen is close to the 'authentic' stollen you were raised with. Love that guy and his formulas :-) His stollen is the one I keep going back to too and I was so excited to find almond paste at our local Wal-Mart - imported from Denmark! That store surprises me at times with what I find on it's shelves. I am sure this is only available during the holidays but I was glad to catch it on an end aisle when I was there a couple of weeks ago buying stuff for my daughter to take back to school with her - paper towel, toilet paper etc... They are also carrying Ghirardelli chocolate chips now too which my daughter loves so I stocked up on a few bags for her Christmas cooking extravaganza :-)
Janet
Back in the days people had no freezers, and counted on booze and sugar and fat to keep food from going bad. You can definitely freeze stollen, even slicing it before. My 93-year old mother who still bakes stollen for the whole family, always freezes what she can't eat.
My husband and I, on the other hand, usually are too undisciplined and too fond of desserts ("Life is Uncertain - Eat the Dessert First"), so we usually start eating it after it has cooled, and then over several days until it's gone. And I never bake big ones, rather two different kinds.
Yes, Dabrownman, noblesse oblige, and Von Snigelfritz would certainly take objection to adding untraditional items like hemp seed to a stollen. Your apprentice, though, should leave her past and ex-husband behind, and open her mind to new, hippier ideas.
I'm glad to be home, too, had United already on my speed dial, for twice canceled and postponed flights. But my mother was happy that I could stay longer, and I even got to a little bit of baking with her (Brussels Sprouts Soufflé and Key Lime Bars).
Karin
relatives on both sides of the family are Pennsylvania Dutch of strong German stock, like all Pennsylvania Dutch are, and they too were fond of saying that they were going to eat desert first - just in case the end was near - and it usually was :-) I am so glad to know that I can taste one now, eat the rest of it for Thanksgiving and then have one stored for the Holidays too - to see what the difference in taste and texture really is after 6 weeks.
Glad you got to spend extra time baking with your Mom., That had to be special for both of you.
A YW question - not related to stollen but it came to my mind this morning as I was tending my 'pets'. I give them a good shake every morning to wake them up....gotta keep them on their toes :-)
I store my RYW in my refrig. once it has ripened. Before going into the cold it has a fruity smell. After being in the refrig. several days it tends to take on more of an alcoholic aroma. Still works fine and produces a mellow ww leaven but I prefer the fruity aroma.
Do you notice differences in the 'bouquet' of yours based on temp. changes?
My maintenance routine is as follows. Daily I remove the amount I need from my jar and replace it with fresh water so I always maintain the same volume in my jar. The jar is immediately placed back in the refrig. If I have taken a larger quantity of water out of it I sometimes will let it sit out for a few hours before putting it back into the cold.
About once a week I remove the 'spent' raisins (I keep about 20 in a quart juice jar) and give them 20ish fresh raisins. If I am in a rush I will give them a squirt of honey mid week.
I am rambling here....What kind of an aroma does your YW have is basically what I would like to know and if you note changes between room temp. yw and refrig yw aromas and if it makes any difference in the final outcome your loaves.
Thanks,
Janet
said to take the lid off the YW to get some oxygen in there and then shake it really good. Well, since CO2 is heavier than oxygen if you just take the lid off no oxygen gets in there at all. So I have a little manual oriental fan standing by so that when the lid comes off, I fan the inside of the jar to get that CO2 out of there and get some oxygen in to take its place. I know it is weird but I worry about my kids more than I should - excepting my real kid of course :-)
I too have noticed that the boozy smell comes in about 3 days after I feed it. I take this as the notice that it is ready to use and it is at full strength. I don't think that it has anything to do with temperature but just that it is well diluted and the fresh apples in my case make the new YW smell more fruity as it sits out a few hours before going into the fridge.
I'm up to two weeks between feeding mine now. The booze never comes out in the finished bread but it dose have that fruity soft and moist crumb with large irregular holes that YW is so good at making. Nothing like it and I haven't had any commercial yeast in the house since the YW got itself established. I figured my stollen had YW in it since the 150 g of frozen fruit were full of it and with the long overnight retard it had to be in there doing its thing with the SD. IF the SD taste is muted then we will know if the YW did its magic.
Thanks for the info. Hadn't thought about the CO2 piece....When I shake I do open the lid to release the trapped gas and assumed it was the CO2 escaping.
Good to know yours smells like mine does. It is hardy stuff. Just like SD. By topping it off every day I rarely have to make a new batch though I don't know how long I can do that yet without it getting too diluted but I figure it doesn't dilute since I am always adding new fruit or honey to the jar. I guess in a couple of years I will know better the ins and outs of these little powerhouses.
I agree, it is nice not to have to rely on IY though for doughs heavy with seeds and nuts I will add .08% IY. Not sure that I have to....I just am in the habit and have IY to use up. Someday it may go too but does come in handy when I want to make a loaf without sd on short notice.
Again, thanks for the insider information :-)
Janet
is fearless and knows how to take charge of a recipe. Looks great! -Varda
that she is the best part of my baking experience and when I bounce baking ideas off of her she really comes up with some fine suggestions. Never baked stollen style anything before so this was a real learning curve treat for both of us. Will try a piece tonight to see of it was worth the effort or needs some more time to .....mature......not that we know what it is supposed to mature into :-).
Just think. In the old days they used to make stollen in WFO's in Dresden and never made it any other way and never thought anything about it. Bet your WFO would really make stollen special!
Thanks for commenting, will let you know how it tastes later tonight.
DA...I've never had stollen before so I don't know what it is supposed to taste or look like, but yours certainly sounds and looks tasty.
I am glad you can freeze yours instead of waiting 6 weeks. Like you, I can't wait more than a few hours usually before digging into my latest bake.
Great post as always.
Ian
and for all the work - it better be good. I'm going to cut an end slice off in about and hour and see what it tastes like - desert last tonight. Eat the rest of it on Thanksgiving and the other for the Hanukkah / Christmas holidays. I learned a lot from this bake but not what it is supposed to look like or taste like. It sure smelled good though.
Glad you liked the post Ian. I've got two lumps retarding in the fridge right now. One is a SD multi-grain on the darker side . The other is less dark, but still same whole grains, with YW and a secret ingredient I've been saving since Passover to spring on the unwary or foolish who get too close. Both of these lumps will be, artfully if not skillfuilly, put together in some kind of massively large Chacon Something since they weight over a kilo together and Toady Tom's miche bake that he posted looked fantastic. A crust like that just can't be had with small sized woosie breads like my apprentice normally bake. It's got to be in the heat for good long while to get that kind of crust.
Glad you liked the post and we look forward to your next one.
Look forward to reading about how your lumps come out. I'm off to NC tomorrow for my annual trip to my wife's relatives and I'm going to bring my SD starter with me to do some baking this time.
Regards,
Ian
. . . Stollen Moments. Wow, that bake looks like a LOT of work, but I am sure it will taste wonderful.
I have been reading back threads about yeast water this week and have some raisins soaking. I will be going to Mexico to visit friends for 3 weeks next Wednesday. My question to the YW experts on this thread is, should I just refrigerate the not yet ready YW, or freeze it and start again on my return?
TIA, Brian
PS I am getting quite a kick from the hemp seed sub thread. Back reading the YW threads the other day, I got quite a chuckle from Dman's post which referred to smoky memories from 40 yers ago and not planting the seeds because I don't need either sandals or rope, (from memory . . .) As an old ski bum from Banff in the 70's, I got a good laugh from that! Thanks for keeping things light. b
I think it is better to feed it one last time and let it sit out a few hours to get going really well, maybe 4 or so, and then add some more water to thin it out some, put some more honey and raisins in the mix shake it really good and put it in the fridge for 3 weeks. You move up to the next larger sized jar you have handy. Should be fine when you come back and feed it again.
We think there can be no love without humor and hemp humor is some of the best kind. - not that I would know much about those things. The Hempster; hanseata herself, a well known hemp and chia pusher by the way, got me 'Hooked on Hemp' before I could even buy a grow light or even a black light for that matter. Now I know what Morrison and Joplin were hooked on before heroin mixed with speed balls! every time I get away they keep pulling me back........it's not pretty or easy to talk about :-)
I'm hoping I like the stollen too and I'm going to slice and end off of one right now, butter it up and sprinkle hemp seeds all over it !
I will add one thing to Mr. D's suggestion about your YW. Leave the lid on the jar loose so the critters don't suffocate while you are gone. Just remember to tighten it before shaking them all up when you return :-)
Janet
wrapped in cotton and sealed in a tin with plastic wrap on top (just to make sure the moisture stays in) I opened it up to have a small taste. I was surprised at how moist the wrapping was. It's like the cotton is sucking the moisture out of the stollen. Any way, I cut of an edge about and inch thick and it tasted fine. I hope the moisture goes back in the stollen eventually. Now I wish I wouldn't have taken a peek or a taste ....