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.

Homemade Quark- German Fresh Cheese

For the longest time I've mourned the fact that you just can't get the insane variety of dairy products available in Germany in Canada. Particularly quark cheese, which is the backbone of a classic Käsekuchen, not to mention a key ingredient in countless other doughs, dishes, and fillings- I've seen one ultra-low fat 0.25% version for sale, but I don't want to make a pastry with that! Vastly superior would be something of at least around 10% fat. 

Of course, there are other types of quark. Magerquark is, to my knowledge, any quark with less than 10% fat- but something to the higher end of that spectrum is better for baking, while that with less fat can be eaten like yogurt with fruit or jam. Topfenquark, which is used in a ton of strudels, Auflaufs, and pastry fillings, is about 20% fat. And Speisequark is about 40% fat, and can be used as a bread spread amongst other uses in giving richness to dishes. 

When I found this recipe for homemade quark that didn't need rennet and could be done within the temperature range that my oven offers, I was suspicious that it was too good to be true. And while this isn't "true" quark in that it isn't cultured the same way... it's definitely a good enough approximation for me! I made mine with half 18% cream and half 3.8% buttermilk to get something with a slight amount of richness, but not too much- perfect for enhancing bread doughs, or for the Quarkstollen that I plan to be making. I'll definitely be trying the recipe out with different fat proportions, like a 20% fat version made partly with whipping cream... then I can try my hand at Topfenstrudel and Topfenpalatschinken. And delicious German cheesecake, of course.

I got just over 400 g. of quark out of this batch, but because I drained it in the fridge overnight, it was really a lot firmer than one would be used to for quark- but that's good, because you typically want to wring out as much whey as you can. Then, you can remoisten it to the desired level by adding some buttermilk or cream. I froze the majority of mine (hey, Google told me I could, but only time will tell if that was really a smart idea) but reserved a small amount to try right away. I added a spoonful of extra buttermilk, some chopped green onion, and some salt and pepper to make a spread for some freshly-baked buns, and it was received with great enthusiasm.

I never would have expected something so good to come of a recipe so simple and easy- any sort of homemade cheese always feels intimidating, but it's really not. My grandmother used to make her own fresh cheeses this way, and in my humble opinion, it tastes much better fresh and homemade.

You can also control the quality of all your ingredients very easily! I'm going to try my hand at other fresh cheeses in the near future. And get back on that Quarkstollen.

Homemade Quark
Adapted from chefkoch.de
(makes 400-500 g.)

500 mL.Buttermilk, 3.8%
500 mL Light cream, 18%

Mix both and let sit for about 15-30 minutes. Pour into a large Dutch oven or other baking pan. Place in an oven preheated to 100℃ and bake for 2 hours. Let cool. 

After cooling completely, strain for 2 hours (or better yet, longer in the fridge- I drained it overnight) with cheesecloths over a pot or bowl. Squeeze the curds dry and add a little buttermilk or cream to get a suitable consistency- you usually want it to be about as thick as Greek yogurt.