Typical German Christmas food is fruit-bread or as they call it Stollen. To be more precise: Stollen is made of yeast dough, a lot of butter, dried fruits, nuts and is covered with thick layer of powder sugar. The white (sugar) cover should resemble baby Jesus' swaddling bands.

Our Stollen on Christmas Eve

A warning before you start baking this delicious Christmas sweet: after you bake the Stollen, you have wrap it in alu-foil and let it rest for at least 24h! So plan ahead, when you want it to be ready to serve ;)

INGREDIENTS:

Place the raisins in a plastic box and piur the rum over. Cover the box and let the raisins absorb the liquid for some time. In a smaller bowl dissolve the yeast in lukewarm milk, add sugar and mix gently. Cover the bowl with a dishcloth and place it in a warm place for yeast to be activated. When you see bubbles forming on the surface, the yeast is ready. Now mix flour, butter, salt and yeast into nice, soft dough and then knead for about 5 minutes until smooth. Again, cover the dough with dishcloth, place it in a warm spot and let it rest/rise for about 30 minutes.
Remove the extra rum from the raisins and mix them with cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, candied oranges and limes. Add almonds and then mix it all into the dough. Now form a long loaf, put it in a baking tray, covered with baking paper and let it rest/rise for about 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 170°C and when the dough had doubled the size,bake for 45 minutes.
When baked smear it with melted butter and cover it with think layer of powder sugar. Now wrap it in alu-foil and let it rest for about 2 days.
When you want to serve it, cover the Stollen with fresh powder sugar so the surface is really white.

Stollen for sale at Christmas market in Ulm, Germany