MINCE pies are something of a staple food at this time of year.
And most people will sit down to a helping or two of Christmas pudding this festive season whether they particularly like it or not.
But I must confess that I’d never heard of, let alone tried, another seasonal treat - stollen.
A traditional German bread-like fruit cake, stollen has its roots at the 15th century Saxon Royal Court apparently.
So, as a keen chef of all things unhealthy and cake-like, and always willing to broaden my culinary horizons, I asked budding bakers and patisseries at Luton’s Barnfield College for a lesson in how to make the perfect stollen.
With a busy restaurant and cafe selling all manner of seasonal sweet treats, the eight third year NVQ patisserie students at the New Bedford Road college certainly know their (er..) onions when it comes to baking festive cakes.
In fact, as well as making some impressive and intricate looking desserts including an amazing looking Baileys cheesecake and pecan tarts, tutor John Barge said that the group had made more than 1,000 mince pies by the time we paid a visit - enough to put anyone off by the time the big day arrives.
Stollen starts off as a fairly simple sweet dough mix (see recipe).
Much to my delight most of the hard work (ie - mixing and kneading) is done by a giant kitchen aid type appliance.
It felt a bit odd to watch a machine do all the work - mixing by hand is good for the bingo wings I always tell my cake-baking colleague Sally by way of encouraging her to make us more cakes for the office (she replies that she hasn’t got bingo wings which, undeterred, I then attribute to all the cake making) - but why have a dog and bark yourself as they say?
A stack of mixed dried fruit is added next.
The frustrating part is waiting for the mix to prove - it takes about half hour or so - and then a small bit of kneading, before the dough is rolled out into a rectangle-type shape.
A sausage-like strip of marzipan, quite possibly the least tasty thing in the world in my opinion, is placed along one length of the rolled out dough and rolled up almost like some sort of roulade.
My attempts at Stollen-making don’t look quite as good as that of my tutors for the day, talented students Liam Marchant, 22, and Sarah Bland, 20, but I guess they are the experts.
After yet more proving, baking for 35/40 minutes at about 190c and a quick glaze with a lemon juice and icing sugar mix, the stollen is finally ready to eat.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating to quote a cliche, and this pudding is delicious, marzipan and all.
And here’s the recipe for making your own.
Recipe
For the dough
- 350g strong flour, 150mls milk, 50g caster sugar, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1 egg, 20g yeast, 110g butter.
Fruit to add to the dough
-40g currants, 50g sultanas, 25g mixed peel, 40g chopped dried apricots, 25g glace cherries, 25g chopped almonds, grated zest of 1/2 a lemon.
175g marzipan
Glaze - 110g icing sugar, 1 tbsp lemon juice
> To find out more about courses at Barnfield or log onto www.barnfield.ac.uk.
> To watch Natalee Hazelwood’s video report, log onto www.lutontoday.co.uk.