Eggless German Stollen Recipe – This authentic German Christmas bread is also called as Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen. Stollen is made with an enriched bread dough along with rum/ juice soaked dry fruits, almonds and marzipan.
The Stollen bread is quite flavourful, extremely soft, buttery and delicious. It is usually dipped in melted butter and rolled in icing sugar.
When making in bulk, all the breads are dipped in melted butter, but it is quite impossible when you make a single bread. So melted butter is brushed on top and dusted with lots of icing sugar.
Eggless German Stollen Recipe – Easy to follow
Every Christmas, when you soak dry fruits for your plum cake, you might have left over fruits. So don’t worry about it. Make a batch of stollen and I am sure you will be delighted.
When you see recipes online, there are so many variations and all of the breads have eggs in it. Many recipes are also very much complicated. I have tried to simplify the process.
All the stepwise photos will help you visualize the recipe. You can also make the recipe in stages. Make marzipan one day, prepare the dough and bake one day and eat it the next day. This kind of dividing the work makes it very easy to manage.
Usually stollen is made with sourdough starter, mainly with a stiff starter, but here I have used instant yeast which makes it even more easier. The recipe ingredients are given in grams and ml, which makes it very accurate. So if you try this, let me know what you think about it.
Eggless German Stollen Recipe – Making homemade Marzipan
Marzipan is easy to make when you have almond meal. Otherwise you need to do an extra step of blanching the almonds, drying it out and powdering it. Using almond meal makes your work easier.
The homemade marzipan is quite easy to bring together. This is an egg free marzipan. Usually egg white is used to bring it together but here we use light corn syrup or liquid glucose. You can even use aquafaba.
But make sure not to grind it much because almond would let out oil when you grind it too much. Add water to bring it together. If too tough, dip your hand in water and then shape it.
The given measurements will make 150 gm of marzipan and perfect to make one stollen.
Eggless German Stollen Recipe – Making the dough
Making the dough is pretty straight forward. Just add all the ingredients and make the dough. If using stand mixer, it will make your work still easier. But if mixing by hand, just knead it for extra 3-4 minutes. Once the dough is perfectly kneaded, let it double in volume.
This part depends on the climate of your place. If it is too chilly, the proving time increases and if the climate is warm, then it would take very less time. It might happen any where between 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.
Strain the soaked fruits to get rid of all the juice or rum. But if there is some liquid left, add one or two tbs of flour to bring the dough together. The dough will be slightly sticky after you incorporate the dry fruits. Dust the dough with some flour so that it will be easier for handling while shaping.
Eggless German Stollen Recipe – Shaping
Shaping is so much fun. Roll the dough into a rectangle. Place the marzipan on two sides. Usually only one portion of marzipan is kept inside the stollen, but I saw a video by a baker in Instagram where he shaped the stollen like I have shown. this adds so much richness to the bread.
Press the dough well so that it stays in shape while baking. Wait until the dough is 1.5 times its original volume. Bake the bread at that stage. Do not let it over prove, the bread will collapse if the dough is over proved.
Eggless German Stollen Recipe – Baking
Preheat oven to 200C. Bake the bread for 15-25 minutes. If the bread browns too fast, cover the top with foil and bake. Keep both filaments on and if you have a fan, switch it on too. Once the bread is out, let it cool completely. Prick it all over with a toothpick and brush generously with butter and dust with lots of icing sugar.
The bread tastes better when it is let to mature. I just covered it with foil and let it sit overnight before slicing. The fruits add so much flavour if it is allowed to sit. When you let it sit overnight, you need to add more icing sugar the next day before slicing and serving. Check out how soft it is when slicing.
You can serve them immediately, or store in an airtight box in fridge. Bring it to room temperature before serving next day. It stays good for a week in fridge.
Eggless German Stollen Recipe
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 70 ml Milk
- 1 tsp Instant Yeast
- 35 gm Butter
- 20 gm Sugar
- ¼ tsp Cardamom Powder
- ¼ tsp Cinnamon Powder
- 140 gm Maida
- 1 tsp Lemon Zest
- 175 gm Soaked Fruits
- 25 gm Chopped Almond
For Marzipan:
- 100 gm Almond Meal
- 50 gm Icing Sugar
- ¼ tsp Rose Essence
- 2 tbs Corn Syrup / Liquid Glucose
- 1 tbs Water
For Topping
- Melted Butter
- Icing Sugar
Instructions
For Marzipan:
- In a mixer jar, take almond meal and icing sugar and grind until fine.
- Add rose essence and corn syrup/ liquid glucose and grind until incorporated.
- Remove the mix on to a board, add water and bring together the marzipan.
- Divide into two and roll each into a log.
- Place in cling film and refrigerate until required.
For the dough:
- In a bowl or stand mixer bowl, take milk, salt, sugar, yeast, butter cardamom powder, cinnamon powder, lemon zest and maida.
- Run the mixer until the dough comes together. Knead the dough for 7 minutes until it is smooth and soft.
- If hand kneaded, knead for 10 minutes after the dough comes together.
- Cover with cling film and let it prove for 45- 60 minutes or until double in volume.
- Now add the chopped almonds and soaked fruits and knead it again. If too sticky, add maida to bring the dough together.
- Take it on to work surface, dust with flour and shape it into a rectangle.
- Place the marzipan logs on both sides of the rectangle.
- Fold the dough over both the marzipan logs and press the centre of the stolen.
- Cover and let it prove until double in volume.
- Preheat oven to 200C.
- Brush the stolen with milk and bake it for 15-25 minutes or until golden on top.
- Remove from oven and let it cool down completely.
- Brush the stolen with melted butter and generously dust with icing sugar.
- Allow the stolen to mature overnight before slicing.
- Store the remaining bread covered with cling film and foil placed in an airtight box.
