Vegan Stollen Rolls (Stollen-Schnecken)

Check out the cute edible gold stars I got. Totally festive, right? Even though it's autumn...

For when Christmas is taking too long to arrive, I like to have something with its characteristic flavours- dried fruit, nuts, marzipan, spices and lots of butter- but enough of a twist that it doesn't make you feel bad that you aren't on winter break yet.

That's why I love these rolls- they really taste like Christmas come early. And, to make the deal sweeter, they're actually vegan! I was skeptical, since butter is one of the predominant flavours in the Stollen that I know and love, but a little butter-vanilla essence (I used Dr. Oetker brand) goes a long way. The copious amount of vegan butter (I used a coconut-oil based brand called Melt that was very nice, but any that's marketed for baking will work)... or just plain baking margarine. After all, my Oma's old DDR cookbooks all call for it in their Stollen, making them inadvertently vegan as well.

These are nontraditional on more fronts than just animal product content, though- they also have a pudding-marzipan filling that tastes creamy and delicious despite being made with soya milk. You can also use almond milk, of course- it might be even better, so long as it's not reduced-calorie/fat.

I have but one warning- even when completely cooked through, the pudding-marzipan filling and marzipan in the dough makes these buns really, really moist- too much for some, I suppose- and you might want to make them a little drier by removing the marzipan in the dough (I went crazy because the blocks I had were getting close to their expiration date, and I didn't want them to go to waste) and not squishing your buns together when baking them like I did. I love it when baked good are really moist, though, so for me it's perfect the way it is.

One more thing- very, very rich. It may be tough to get through even one bun in one sitting. I still think it's worth is, since the taste is glorious. They're not tricky to make, so don't let the long instructions scare you- there's only a few simple components that you need to put together and then assemble. Like flatpack furniture but less aggravating!

Obviously you don't have to make them vegan, especially if the ingredients are hard to find- I had them available and I wanted to play with them and see how good they'd taste in pastry and if anyone would miss the dairy. Nobody did!

Vegan Stollen-Rolls
Makes 9-12
Adapted from Veganer Kuchen

For the dough:
500 g. Flour
150 ml Soya or almond milk
200 g. Marzipan, finely chopped or grated (or use 80 g. sugar)
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
A few drops butter-vanilla extract (or 1-2 Tsp. if it's not the super-concentrated type in tiny glass tubes)
1/2 Tsp. Almond extract, optional
Zest of 1 orange or lemon
2 TBSP Rum, or 1 Tsp. Rum extract
2 Tsp. Stollen spices (or, mix 1/2 Tsp. each cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and cardamom)
42 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 1/2 Tsp. Active dry yeast
150 g. Margarine or vegan baking-suitable butter, in cubes

Warm milk and dissolve yeast. Let sit 15 minutes.

Whisk together the flour, spices, zest and vanilla sugar. Add the milk mixture and all the extracts (and rum) being used. Knead until smooth, then add the chunks of marzipan one by one and knead until all are completely mixed into the dough. Repeat with the margarine. 

Let rise in a greased, covered bowl for about 1 hour, or until doubled. After about 45 minutes, begin preheating the oven to 190℃. Then, roll out on a floured surface to form a large rectangle and prepare as in the following filling instructions.

For the Filling:
200 g. Marzipan, finely chopped
2 TBSP Rum, or 1 Tsp. Rum extract
250 ml. Soya or almond milk, plus more as necessary
1 (43 g.)  Packet Dr. Oetker vanilla, almond or cream flavoured pudding powder (or, use corn/potato starch)
1 Packet Vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
100 g. Margarine or vegan baking-suitable butter (you can cut this to half or even omit it)

Whisk together pudding powder, soya/almond milk and vanilla sugar. Bring to a boil and let thicken. Stir in the margarine and marzipan and whisk until thoroughly combined. add the rum and more of the milk to thin as necessary to get a pastey, spreadable consistency.

Let cool slightly until just warm, then spread across the dough rectangle, leaving about 1 inch of room on one of the long sides of the rectangle. Finish with the dried fruits, as following.

For the Dried Fruit:
150 g. Raisins, sultanas and/or currants
50 g. Candied orange peel, chopped finely
50 g. Candied citron peel, chopped finely
75 g. Almonds, chopped or slivered
1/4 C. Rum, optional

Cover the fruits with rum, if using, and enough hot water to cover them up in a bowl. Let sit at least 30 minutes, then drain.

Sprinkle evenly across the filling and roll the whole thing up like a jelly roll, finishing so that the long side with the clean edge is rolled up last. Use this clean end to stick the roll together and seal the "seam". 

Using a sharp knife, wire or floss, cut the resulting log into 9-12 pieces. Arrange on a baking tray lined with parchment, or in a greased baking dish.

Bake for about 1 hour, covering with aluminium foil after about 20 minutes to avoid overbrowning. They are finished when they reach 190℉ or 90℃ inside.

To Finish:
50 g. Margarine or vegan baking-suitable butter, melted
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract, or a few drops butter-vanilla extract
Powdered sugar

Mix melted margarine and extract. 

While the rolls are still warm, brush with the margarine mixture. Once cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Rosinenbrötchen mit Quark- Raisin Buns with Quark + Stollen-Brötchen

Plain buns on the left and raisined ones on the right.

In the long list of bread and bun recipes I'm finally getting around to posting, here's one of my favourites- soft, moist, rich raisin buns enriched with fresh cheese. You can use the quark recipe I've posted, or some farmer's cheese that's been processed well in a food processor with some extra butter. 

Many flavours work well in this dough, though I kept it simple- you can add some spices, some citrus zest or use a different dried fruit like cranberries or currants. You can even omit the fruit entirely (I did this with half because not everyone in my family appreciates the deliciousness of dried fruit...). These are one of the things I love to make for important holidays like Christmas and Easter as part of the breakfast menu, but I also love to freeze leftovers to eat later on... they're especially good with butter and jam, but are also delicious on their own. The "Stollen" version I give makes a nice off-season treat when you crave the flavours of Stollen but Christmas is still far off.

Rosinenbrötchen mit Quark
From ketex.de

For the Sponge:
200 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
150 g. Milk, 2 to 3.8%
20 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 1/4 Tsp. active dry yeast

Mix all well and let rest, covered, for 45 minutes in a warm place.

For the Final dough:
Sponge
300 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
100 g. Butter, at room temperature
50 g. Sugar
100 g. Topfenquark (20% m.f.), or well-ground 12% twarog/farmer's cheese plus 25 g. butter (You can double this quantity for a moister, denser dough- just add about 5 minutes baking time)
8 g. Salt
2 Egg yolks
175 g. Raisins, light or dark
1 TBSP Diastatic malt powder, or honey

beaten egg yolk, condensed milk, cream or melted butter, to brush
Pearl sugar (optional)

Mix all but the butter and raisins and knead until smooth. Add the butter in small pieces and continue kneading until it's incorporated. Add the raisins and once they're evenly distributed, cover the dough and let rise in a greased bowl for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180℃. Form into buns of the desired size (about a dozen works best) and cover. Let rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

Brush with the desired topping. Sprinkle with pearl sugar, if you like. Bake the buns for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

For "Stollen-Brötchen":

Add a pinch of saffron to the milk in the sponge and heat until steaming. Let infuse 30 minutes before using.

To the above recipe, substitute a mixture of 100 g. sultanas and raisins, 25 g. chopped orange peel, 25 g. chopped citron peel and 50 g. currants. In addition, add:

1 Sachet vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
Zest of one lemon
1/2 Tsp. Mace
1/2 Tsp. Nutmeg
1 Tsp. Cardamom
75 g. Chopped or slivered blanched almonds

To the dough; the spices and sugar in the first steps in making the final dough, and the almonds along with the fruit mixture.

Top the buns with melted butter and pearl sugar.

Quarkstollen

This is a really great way to get a nice-tasting stollen when you don't have time to let it rest for the usual 3-4 weeks- for instance, when you're craving stollen out of season, or need to make another at the last minute. While it doesn't have quite the same texture as a yeast stollen, it's still tender and tasty, especially when spices are added. Keep in mind that it doesn't last as long as regular stollen in terms of freshness, so consume soon after baking!

Quarkstollen
Adapted from allrecipes.de

For the Fruits and Nuts:
200 g. Light and dark raisins, mixed
50 g. Candied orange peel, diced
50 g. Candied citron peel, diced
125 g. Chopped/slivered almonds
About 1/4 - 1/3 C. Dark rum, preferably spiced

Cover fruit and nuts in rum and soak overnight.

Final Dough:
500 g. All purpose flour
2 1/4 Tsp. Baking powder
Pinch of salt
100 g. Sugar
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
200 g. Butter
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
6 Drops (about 1/4 tsp.) Bitter almond extract
1 Packet of stollen spices, or 1/2 Tsp. each nutmeg, mace and cardamom (optional)
2-3 TBSP Rum or milk
Zest of one lemon
250 g. Quark (I used homemade)

To Finish:
50 g. Butter, melted
1 Sachet vanilla sugar or 1 TBSP homemade
50-100 g. Powder sugar

Preheat oven to 180℃.

Beat butter and add quark. Add the lemon zest, bitter almond extract, and sugars. Incorporate the eggs. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt before adding.

Mix in the fruits and nuts. Add enough rum or milk to make the dough rollable and soft. 

Shape into two loaves and bake for about an hour, covering with aluminium foil if browning too fast. 

Let cool and brush with butter. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar and thoroughly cover in powder sugar. Wrap up in aluminium foil and let rest overnight before cutting and eating.

Marzipan-Stollen (with Milk Roux and Preferment)

I really, really, really love making Stollen. I have many fond memories of doing it with my mother following an old recipe from my grandmother, soaking the raisins and proofing the dough, rolling out the marzipan for the centre and brushing it with butter when it was done. It was a sure sign that Christmas was on the way- Stollen is to be made weeks before, at least three to four, but for us it was usually early or mid-November when we started to give it optimal time to age. Even though there's over a month to the holidays, the fact that there's a stollen in the pantry wrapped up and ready meant the promise of Christmas right around the corner.

The unbaked Stollen, ready to go.

There are many recipes for Stollen, and none are right or wrong- though for my family, the ultimate stollen has got to be a buttery yeast dough full of raisins, currants, citrus peel and almonds, and the marzipan core is a must. I plan to make another batch closer to Christmas with a baking powder-egg-quark dough that's nothing like what we usually have, but there's got to be something traditional there, too- it's Christmas, after all.

Powdered up and ready to lie in wait until Christmas...

While this isn't my Oma's recipe, I think this is an improvement- more butter and less sugar in the dough, with copious amounts of fruit and nuts and lots of different spices. There's a roux in the dough to keep it soft and moist until Christmas, and of course plenty of my beloved marzipan. It's crusted thickly in two types of sugar along with the butter, and is less breadlike and more dense than what we usually have. I think it helps that we didn't use a high-gluten flour this year, instead opting for type 550/all purpose flour, and didn't overdo it with the resting times. I've seen a lot of bread-like stollen recipes, but it just doesn't seem right to me- but hey, to each their own. Stollen is a very personal business.

After baking, I always pick out the burnt nuts and fruits that get totally carbonized on top (it seems you can't avoid that) before brushing on the butter and powdering it up. Next, the loaves get wrapped in baking parchment and aluminium foil and placed in the cabinet above the range for a nice, long time. I'm always a little nervous letting them sit, although I know they've got to- then again, I've heard of fruitcakes that sit for a full year (or more) before consumption. 

And after a long wait... fantastic stollen that's moist and soft but not too much so, crusted in vanillaey sugar and complete with a marzipan centre.

Marzipan-Stollen
Adapted from Hefe und Mehr

For the Fruit and Nuts:
225 g. Mixed yellow, green and dark raisins/sultanas
75 g. Currants
100 g. Slivered/chopped almonds
70 ml. Dark spiced rum
Boiling water, to cover

Mix all and cover with just enough hot water to almost top off the fruits. Leave overnight in the refrigerator to absorb.

(NOTE: I forgot to presoak my fruits overnight, so mine only got about 3-4 hours in the rum mixture... if you want a strong rum flavour, though, go for the full 12-14 hour soak, or add a few drops of rum extracts to the fruits to boost the flavour as a quick fix. I also went a little overboard with the sultanas- but that's a matter of personal taste. The amount given is already very generous.)

For the Roux:
30 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
150 g. Milk

In a small saucepan, cook on medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until 65℃- or until it forms an almost translucent, pudding-like paste. Place in a cool bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let cool to room temperature before using.

For the Preferment:
100 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
100 g. Milk, cold
35 g. Fresh yeast

Mix all and let rise until doubled.

Final Dough:
400 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
5 g. Salt
0.5 g. Each mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom (approximate with the amount on the tip of a knife!)
Half a vanilla bean, scraped
75 g. Sugar, plus one or two sachets vanilla sugar (optional)
Zest of half a lemon (optional)
250 g. Butter
50 g. Candied citron, diced
50 g. Candied orange peel, diced
150-200 g. Marzipan

Cream butter and sugar (including vanilla sugar, lemon zest and scraped-out vanilla seeds, if using). Sift together flour, spices and salt, and add to the butter mixture, along with the roux and preferment. Knead until homogeneous, keeping the dough cool. 

Let rest covered for 30 minutes. In the mean time, shape the marzipan into two long rods.

Drain the fruits and nuts and mix with the diced peels. Knead into the dough until just incorporated, and divide into two parts. Let rest covered and preheat the oven to 200℃.

Flatten each piece of dough into an oblong oval. In the centre, form a dent and place in the marzipan roll, folding the dough over it. Bake right away for 40 minutes, covering with foil if browning too quickly.

To Finish:
50 g. Melted butter
80 g. Superfine sugar
100 g. Powder sugar

Brush with melted butter and coat thickly in sugar. Dust all over with powder sugar once cool (after a few hours, or the next morning) and roll up in aluminium foil. Store in a cool, dark, dry place for at least a week before eating.

Mincemeat Fruit Mix

This is entirely my improvisation on what I thought ought to be in a mincemeat mix, and what I happened to have in the cupboard that looked like it could use a bit of livening up with rum and spices. Some citron and orange peel from Easter, various half-finished containers of raisins, some currants... the dates and cherries are new, though. I like the honey-like stickiness that date bits add to things, and I love the tartness of dried cherries (I got lucky and found unsweetened ones) in contrast to the raisins. 

The whole thing is doused in a mixture of alcohol remnants from the bottom of several mini-bottles, with the traditional rum, some brandy (it seemed right) and Grand Marnier for some extra orangey flavour. The spices are also all wild guesses on what goes into a mincemeat- I used a lot of allspice and cloves since that seems to be characteristic of mincemeat to me, but it's all a matter of preference. There's plenty of brown sugar to create a thick layer of alcohol-spice-goo and moisten everything, some lemon juice for acidity, and a bit of hazelnut oil in the place of suet just to coat all the components and add a little complexity of flavour. Later on when using the mincemeat, some extra butter or flavoured oil for further enrichment would be a good idea- I use butter-cooked apples in my mince pies, so I didn't use much fat here. The apple variant is included at the bottom, and is in my opinion better for filling pies as it tempers the intensity of the dried fruit while adding moisture.

Every once in a while I open up the container just to smell how fantastic this mincemeat is, and every time it's better than the last. It gets me excited for the prospects of my first-ever attempt at Christmas baking derived from the Anglosphere, which is kind of necessitated by the fact that I love mincemeat but the local bakery makes it the traditional non-vegetarian suet-enriched way.

I messed up the first time around with too many spices and too much alcohol- I ended up soaking half the mix in hot water to soak out some of the seasonings, then returned them to the rest of the mix to make a milder, better-balanced mincemeat. I've already changed the ingredients accordingly, but keep in mind that taking things out is a lot harder than putting them in- when in doubt, leave it out, and you can always readjust the seasonings before using later.

Mincemeat Fruit Mix
100 g. Currants
120 g. Dried tart cherries, preferably unsweetened
220 g. Yellow and/or green sultanas
220 g. Dark raisins
125 g. Candied orange peel, diced
90 g. Candied citron peel, diced
100 g. Chopped pitted dates
150 g. Brown sugar
1/4 Tsp. Nutmeg
1/4 Tsp. Cardamom
1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp. Ginger
1/2 Tsp. Allspice
1/4 Tsp. Cloves
1 TBSP Vanilla extract
2 TBSP Hazelnut oil
1/2 C. Rum, brandy and Grand Marnier- about 1/2 rum and 1/4  each of the others
1 Tsp. Lemon zest
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Mix all well and leave to marinate in a sealed container in the refrigerator for at least a month, preferably more. 

Variant with Cooked Apples

Half of above fruit mix
About 2 tart cooking apples- peeled, cored and grated
2 TBSP Sugar, preferably cane or light brown
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 TBSP Butter

Heat butter in a medium saucepan or skillet and add sugar. Add apples, and cook on medium heat until all the liquids have been released. Add lemon juice and keep cooking until most of the liquid is evaporated and the apples are soft.

Mix with the mincemeat.