Where To Buy Dresden Stollen
The original Dresdner Christstollen is, in Germany and beyond the national borders, probably the best-known Christmas pastry with the greatest traditional background and a centuries-long history. The Dresden Christstollen is protected as a trademark and may only be designated as Dresden Stollen by members of the Stollenschutzverband in Dresden. In order to preserve the well-known Dresden Stollensiegel, the Christmas stollen has to reach at least 16 out of 20 points during the annual taste test of the tunneling. Only then can the Christstollen be designated as a Dresden Christstollen.
where to buy dresden stollen
Much like panettone in Italy, or the Christmas yule log cake bûche de Noël in France, stollen is synonymous with the holidays. And the place to enjoy original stollen is its birthplace of Dresden, Germany.
I followed the scent and stepped into a wonderland where red tins, containing the iconic Christmas bread, towered in the middle of the bakery, as workers darted around with the frenzy of the holidays.
One trend everyone seems to agree on is the ritual of mid-to-late afternoon coffee or tea with pastry. This tradition is common year-round in Germany; during the holidays, that sweet is often stollen.
Today, the divine dessert practically emanates butter. Orange and lemon zest, dried fruits, raisins, and sugar give it sweetness. Bakers make loaves well before Christmas so the bread can mature. A sugary glaze keeps it moist, and shops ship loaves of stollen around the globe.
Nearby is Muskauer Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where we strolled trails in a gorgeous rural setting, crossed a picturesque bridge, and took selfies in Poland. With forested areas, a country landscape, and a pink castle to tour, visitors can climb the winding, steep stairs to the top of the tower for views. The Castle Café is an ideal place for a cappuccino and that slice of stollen, after the climb.
Hollywood has discovered the easternmost town in Germany of Gὂrlitz. This charming medieval city, where church bells toll and shops sell local mustard, has become one of the most popular places in Europe to film movies.
One late afternoon in the city of Leipzig, I followed custom and savored a hot beverage and pastry. The sweet, moist, rich stollen with coffee hit the spot, but mostly, I relished the festive atmosphere of the small bustling café.
Legend says that Stollen came about due to a special dispensation from the Pope. In the Middle Ages, people were instructed to fast, so use of butter and cream went against the rules of the Church. Stollen without butter tasted horribly dry. In 1560, Prince Ernst von Sachsen reached out to Pope Urban VII on behalf of the Bakers of Dresden (and presumably their customers) to please allow them to use butter for Stollen. But only in Dresden. The Butter Brief (Butter Declaration) was cause for celebration! And as thanks, Bakers delivered a massive 36 pound Stollen to the head of Saxony. Today they STILL celebrate with a Stollen Festival, where a massive Stollen is served for all to try on the second Sunday of Advent.
Christmas stollen, known in Germany as Christstollen, is a yeast bread that is baked with dried fruits, candied citrus peel, nuts and spices. Variations include Mandelstollen (almond), Mohnstollen (poppy seed), Quarkstollen (quark), Nuss-Stollen (nuts), Butterstollen (high butter content), Dresdner Stollen and Marzipanstollen.
Towards the end of the last rise, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and bake the stollen for 30-40 minutes or until golden. You can use an instant read thermometer to aim for an internal temperature of 190 degrees F.
As they point out, each Christmas Stollen (originally called Striezel) is unique. With centuries of recipes passed from one family to the next, stollens vary from generation to generation.
Ingredients are mixed in special sequence and the rising of the dough is specially timed with different baking temperatures in the oven. This unique process invented in Dresden guarantees the high quality in taste, texture and flavor. To maintain flavor and freshness, the Emil Reimann stollen is buttered again after baking. The package depicting the Dresden Frauenkirche is a premium product, equipped with an extra bag of icing sugar .
Dresdner Stollen is considered to be the king of all stollen. It's baked in Dresden, Germany, following a time-honored recipe that dates back to 1474. To be designated an official Dresdner stollen, each stollen must be made by hand (in Dresden) with required ingredients, including real butter (never margarine!), whole milk, rum-soaked sultanas, and sweet and bitter almonds. No artificial flavors, colors, or sweeteners are allowed. To certify authenticity, each stollen bears the official golden seal of quality.
Stollen (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtɔlən] (listen) or [ʃtɔln] (listen)) is a fruit bread of nuts, spices, and dried or candied fruit, coated with powdered sugar or icing sugar and often containing marzipan. It is a traditional German Christmas bread. During the Christmas season the cake-like loaves are called Weihnachtsstollen (after "Weihnachten", the German word for Christmas) or Christstollen (after Christ).
Stollen is a cake-like fruit bread made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Orangeat (candied orange peel) and candied citrus peel (Zitronat),[1] raisins and almonds, and various spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs,[2] vanilla,[3] other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan, may also be added to the dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished bread is sprinkled with icing sugar.[4] The traditional weight of a stollen is around 2.0 kg (4.4 lb), but smaller sizes are common. The bread is slathered with melted unsalted butter and rolled in sugar as soon as it comes out of the oven, resulting in a moister product that keeps better.[5] The marzipan rope in the middle is optional. The dried fruits are macerated in rum or brandy for a superior-tasting bread.
Early stollen was different from the modern version, with the ingredients being flour, oats and water.[9] As a Christmas bread, stollen was baked for the first time at the Council of Trent in 1545,[10] and was made with flour, yeast, oil and water.
Commercially made stollen has become a popular Christmas food in Britain in recent decades, complementing traditional dishes such as mince pies and Christmas pudding. All the major supermarkets sell their own versions, many made in Germany, and it is often baked by home bakers.[12]
Today, the festival takes place on the Saturday before the second Sunday in Advent, and the cake weighs between three and four tonnes. A carriage takes the cake in a parade through the streets of Dresden to the Christmas market, where it is ceremoniously cut into pieces and distributed among the crowd, in return for a small payment which goes to charity. A special knife, the Grand Dresden Stollen knife, a silver-plated knife, 1.60 metres (5.2 ft) long weighing 12 kilograms (26 lb), which is a copy of the lost baroque original knife from 1730, is used to cut the oversize Stollen at the Dresden Christmas fair.[14]
To put it simply: name recognition. Dresdner Christstollen is considered the classic stollen, the one most people default to during the holidays. Consider it the stollen equivalent of cheese pizza. Sure, everyone likes the various toppings, but cheese pizza, in the end, is a reliable classic.
Dresden stollen is typically served with butter, honey, and jam. While we may perceive stollen as closer to a fruitcake, for Germans it's a type of bread and they treat it as they would any other bread.
All the butter and spices made stollen a luxury food during the middle ages (cinnamon had yet to become an easily acquired commodity; until the 19th century it was an expensive ingredient not used in everyday foods) and the bread was supposed to last for a few weeks in the pantry.
Even an artisanal, freshly baked Dresden stollen with no artificial preservatives will last for at least 3-4 months if properly stored. Properly stored means kept at a dry and cool, dark place, protected from the direct influences of moisture, oxygen, and heat.
I am going to give this a try! Your recipe looks amazing. Do you need to use non-melting confectioners sugar for coating the stollen at the end, or is regular powdered sugar (like Domino 10x powdered sugar) ok? Thanks!
Like in no other product, passion, expertise, and centuries-old tradition come together in the Dresdner Christstollen. However, even though the ingredients are known, there still are at least one hundred secrets about the Christmas pastry. Every baker gives his Stollen its own touch - with a special spice mixture, a few raisins more or by buttering the stollen twice after baking. These nuances are what make every Dresdner Christstollen unique and you can taste it.
Colorio filled me in about Frau Helga's Dresden Stollen, a business that Dimitria Delights purchased several years ago. It had made the seasonal stollen under private label for the previous owner, Steve Greenfield, who remains involved in the marketing and sales of the product, said Colorio.
Stollen is a traditional German cake, usually eaten during the Christmas season. There are many stollen enthusiasts, according to Colorio, who said her company begins production of the confection next month.
Home bakers familiar with making stollen usually use recipes that call for soaking quantities of raisins and nuts in rum and adding them to a sweet, yeast-risen dough with candied citrus peel and spices, or a few additions of their own.
"I love stollen with coffee for breakfast on winter mornings," said Dr. Elizabeth Wade-Sirabian, German professor at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. "Unlike fruitcake, it's not too sweet and is more bread-like."
According to the Dresden Stollen Association, stollen dates back to 15th-century Saxon Germany and became a popular treat for Advent time about a century later, once bakers were able to use more complicated ingredients. Over the years, the tradition spread to many other parts of the world, including Britain and the United States. 041b061a72