Christmas is Stollen

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.

For anyone who does not like fruit cake because if its sheer density, this is going to be a revelation. This is what fruit cake should be. The best thing I can compare it to is a fruity cinnamon roll, it is absolutely delicious! I took a short cut and used the premade dried fruit you can buy at the store since the recipe already required more than a day to complete as it is, and you can’t even tell. The orange and lemon zest and extract make this smell divine when you cut into it. The bread itself is not very sweet, it really is just bread after all, so you definitely need the powdered sugar (or maybe a glaze) to make it more of a cake in that sense. It’s fruity and fluffy, not at all dense like its fruit cake counterpart. I will definitely be saving this in my holiday repertoire for next year, thank you Penny for this delicious recipe!