Tuesday, December 1, 2020

ICSC Member Blog: German Christmas Bread – Christstollen

Christstollen is a very popular sweet in Germany during the Holiday season. It is a type of sweet bread with lots of dried fruits and spices that pairs perfectly with a glass of mulled (spiced) wine, cider or tea!

Below you can find an authentic German recipe for Christstollen. Some of the ingredients might be a little hard to find but if you put in the extra effort, you will be rewarded with a delicious German Christmas bread!

quark christstollen

Recipe for German Christstollen:

  • 200 g raisins

  • 75 ml milk

  • 500 g flour

  • 14 g dry yeast

  • 150 g sugar

  • 175 g soft butter

  • 125 g quark (low fat soft cheese, can be found at Trader Joes or Whole Foods)

  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

  • 1 egg

  • ½ tsp salt

  • ½ tsp each of cardamom, cinnamon and gloves

  • 100 g candied orange peel

  • 100 g candied lemon peel

  • 200 g ground almonds


To make the yeasted dough, heat up the milk first. Mix flour with yeast and 1 tsp of sugar, then add the warm milk. Use a fork to mix all the ingredients together and let the dough sit at room temperature for 15 min. Mix in all the remaining ingredients (other than raisins, dried fruit and almonds) using a hand or stand mixer. Let the dough rise at a warm place for ~1h. Heat up the oven to 220 °C / 430 °F.

Mix the dough with the raisins, dried fruit and almonds and form it into an oval loaf. Put the loaf onto a backing sheet lined with parchment paper and let it rise for another 30-60 min. Cool the oven down to 180 °C / 350 °F and place the baking sheet in the lower third of the oven. Bake the loaf for ~1h.

Right after you take the loaf out of the oven, glaze it with some melted butter (~75 g). After the bread is cooled completely, some powered sugar can be sprinkled on top. Wrapped in foil, this Christmas bread will last for a few weeks.

Enjoy your Christstollen!!


This post was written by ICSC member Fabienne Birkle

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