Advent

Though Florida is ridiculously hot again (around 30°C) I'm in the mood for christmas baking. Not every day. But often enough to get going with it. 

I was thinking about Stollen lately. It's a german christmas bread that's traditionally loaded with candied orange and lemon peel, raisins, sometimes marzipan. It's nothing that I couldn't live without but this year I was in the mood for giving it a try. I never never never in my life made it myself. It's a yeast based pastry that doesn't have a lot of sugar, but is sweetened by the fruit inside, sometimes marzipan and a thick layer of confectioners sugar. My parents used to order special variations like red wine Stollen or champagne Stollen at a small bakery that's specialized on this kind of pastry. And I loved their less sweet and less candied peel loaded Stollen, but unfortunately they use milk and eggs.

So I searched for some vegan recipes online, and since it's hard to come after candied peel here that doesn't look completely disgusting (with lots of food coloring and sweetened with corn syrup, loaded with preservatives etc..) I decided to go for raisins only. I used turbotofu's recipe and went a little freestyle on the spice part, it's not very precise anyway. Instead of confectioners sugar I dusted with regular vegan sugar.

And then comes the hard part. You don't eat it right away but let it sit for at least two weeks. Traditionally the sit like six weeks or even longer. That's so that all the flavors from the rum infused raisins and candied peel and marzipan and spices can soak through the whole Stollen loaf. That's the part where I cheated and cut open the first loaf. And I really have to say that it went well for the first attempt. Haha. That doesn't sound too optimistic, right? Well yeah, I'm looking forward to tasting it in a little while..


Apart from that one batch of mihl's Spekulatius made with oil, which don't taste like Spekulatius to me, because they came out soft, but were otherwise delicious. Bake them!

And soon more to tell about the garden...