Stollen Bites (Christmas)
The recipe comes from the December issue of Waitrose magazine (2024), by Jürgen Krauss.
For about 16-18 bites:
- 150 g of strong white bread flour, sifted
- 100 g of plain flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 75 g of caster sugar
- 50 g of ground almonds
- a generous pinch of ground nutmeg
- a generous pinch of ground cloves
- a generous pinch of ground coriander
- a pinch of salt
- 75 g of quark or 50 g of a Greek yogurt (I add the yogurt), at room temperature
- 50 ml whole milk
- 1 egg
- 75 unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes
- 50 g of raisins
- 50 g mixed peel (I add candied orange peel), chopped
- 50 g glacé cherries, roughly chopped to the size of raisins
Preheat the oven to 190 C fan, gas mark 5.
Line two baking trays (or one large) with baking parchment.
In a large bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, sugar, ground almonds and spices with a pinch of salt. Mix well with a balloon whisk.
In a separate bowl whisk the yogurt, milk, egg to combine. Add the mixture to the dry ingredients along with the softened butter and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. Add the dry fruit, then kneed the dough in the bowl for about 5 minutes, until you have a rough, very sticky dough. Set aside to rest in the bowl, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
See the image below and follow the steps.
Lightly dust a work surface with flour, then turn the dough out onto it and divide into 2 pieces.
Shape each piece into a roll 24 cm in length and 4 cm in width. Pat each roll down about 1cm thick and 6 cm wide.
One strip at a time, fold the dough over lengthways so that each is 3-4 cm wide. With a sharp knife cut 3 cm-wide pieces and lay them cut-side up on the prepared baking trays so they form “U” shapes.
Bake for 30 minutes until dark golden brown. Set aside to cool on a rack for about 20 minutes.
After that time, they are ready for the decoration by sifting some icing sugar on top.
Jürgen however, makes them slightly fancier by melting 50 g of butter, then he dips the bites into it or brushes the butter all over the baked stollen. Next the bites are left on the rack for a further 20 minutes before decorating with a heavy coating of icing sugar.
You can store the stollen bites in an air tight container for up to 5 days.
