Stollens everywhere.

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

I went with tropical fruits because I wanted a twist. Instead of marzipan, I found almond paste and decided on that instead.

It's a tedious process that involved rising, kneading, more rising, and finally some baking. I would leave it to rise while I ran errands.



I might have messed up with portions because I only used half the recipe, but nonetheless, the stollen came out gloriously. I loved it and ate lots of it myself. When did I start enjoying dried fruit and nuts so much? I never did before all this Christmas baking.



Now I see stollens everywhere: in cookie recipes, at the farmer's markets... If you don't know about it, you never realize that it's all around you. Like Christmas/love is all around you.

Now here's a song: