Christmas Stollen| German Stollen Bread

Stollen is a traditional German bread usually eaten during the Christmas season, it is called Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen as well as Winterbrot (winter bread) when eaten during Jewish festivities, as a indication of the coming of winter. Stollen is a fruit bread containing dried fruit and often covered with powdered sugar. It is also called as stollen cake. For me it is a sweet yeast risen bread or cake with christmassy fruits, peel and nuts.

 Apart from leavening time the bread is so easy if you have the peel and other ingredients in hand. I have already prepared candied ginger and candied orange peel for this Christmas. I had other dry fruits and nuts at home so making this bread was so easy for me. I have referred all recipes site for the recipe and made changes as per my taste and made with marzipan surprise inside.

Preparation Time: 2 hour

Cooking Time: 40 minutes

Cuisine: German

Makes: 1 big loaf

INGREDIENTS:
Dry yeast-  2 teaspoons
Warm Milk- 3/4 cup
Egg-1
Sugar- 1/3 cup
Salt- 1 teaspoon
Butter-1/2 cup
All purpose flour| Bread flour-2 and 1/2 cups
Black raisins- 1/2 cups
Sultanas- 1/2 cup
Glazed cherries, chopped- 1/4 cup
Candied Ginger- 1/4 cup (optional)
Candied peel- 1/4 cup
Marzipan- 200 gms
Powdered sugar|Icing sugar- 2 tablespoons
Cinnamon- 1/2 teaspoon

PROCEDURE:

• In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm milk. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

• In a large bowl, combine the yeast mixture with the egg, caster sugar, salt, butter, and 3/4 of the bread flour; beat well. Add the remaining flour, a little at a time, stirring well after each addition.

• When the dough has begun to pull together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead in the currants, sultanas, dried cherries and mixed peel. Continue kneading until smooth, about 8 minutes.

• Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

• Lightly grease a baking tray. Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the marzipan into a rope and place it in the center of the dough. Fold the dough over to cover it; pinch the seams together to seal.

• Place the loaf, seam side down, on the prepared baking tray. Cover with a clean, damp tea-towel and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180 degrees.

• Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 150 C  and bake for a further 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown.
• Allow loaf to cool on a wire cooling rack. Dust the cooled loaf with icing sugar, sprinkle with cinnamon and finish with toasted flaked almonds. 

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Whole Wheat Hot Cross Buns (Eggless butterless)

The Hot cross bun is a spiced mildly sweeted bun made with dried fruits like raisins or currants and marked with a cross on the top;  traditionally consumed on Good Friday. This bread is also made at the part of Christmas as well as new year celebrations too.

Here I have made whole wheat version of these sweet spiced buns which turned out really moist and tasty without any amount butter or added eggs. I used Chakki fresh atta with which i make rotis; you could use whole wheat bread flour too. I hadn't baked any hundred percent whole wheat bread  till then and i was happy with the outcome.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Proofing Time: 2 hours
Cooking Time: 15-20 minutes
Cuisine: UK
Makes: 10 nos

INGREDIENTS:
Whole Wheat Flour- 3½ cups (I used Chakki fresh atta; You could use bread flour too)
Brown sugar/ Honey- 1/4 cup (Use 1/3 cup for more sweetness)
Salt- 1 teaspoon
Luke warm Milk+water- 2 cups approximately (Use 50:50 ratio if you use full fat milk; I used low fat so I used 75 percent milk and 25 percent water )
Yeast- 2 ½ teaspoons
Oil- 1/4 cup+ for greasing
Cinnamon powder- 1 teaspoon
Nutmeg- pinch (optional)
Black raisins/ black currants- 1/3 cup
Orange zest, fresh/ dried peel powdered- 1 teaspoon
Butter/milk/ egg wash- to brush
To fill the cross:
All purpose Flour- 1/4 cup
Water- less than 1/4 cup

PROCEDURE:

• Mix milk and water together; heat till it becomes luke warm.
• From that mixture, take a cup of milk water mixture and add the yeast as well as a teaspoon of brown sugar from the 1/4 cup you kept for making bread.
• Stir well and allow to ferment for about 10 minutes till the frothy layer appears on top.

• Take a wide deep bowl and add the whole wheat flour, sugar and oil.
• Now drizzle the fermented yeast milk over the flour and knead to make a sticky dough. Add the milk kept aside and knead well. Add extra milk/water if needed to get this sticky consistency.

• Transfer the dough on a clean flat surface and knead and stretch to make a non sticky pliable dough. 
• Grease the same bowl as well as dough with oil and transfer the dough and close the bowl using cling film and keep in a warm place to raise the dough for an hour.

• Once the dough doubles in size, punch the dough with hands and sprinkle the remaining flavoring ingredients such as orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and raisin.
• Knead and transfer the dough on a flat surface and stretch; knead the dough once again to distribute all the ingredients evenly.

• Then divide the dough in to 10 equal balls.
• Grease your hand and stretch the dough slightly outward and fold them down to get a even outer surface without cracks and make uniform balls.

• Give a criss cross cut over each ball and allow to raise for 1 hour on a warm place.
• Once the dough doubles in size brush each ball with egg wash/ melted butter.

• In a bowl add the all purpose flour with a pinch of sugar. Drizzle the water little by little till you get a thick paste of piping consistency.
• Fill a piping bag/zip lock bag and pipe the mixture on the cross you made earlier.
• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and bake the buns on middle rack for about 15- 20 minutes till you get the golden crust on top.

• Brush the buns with melted apricot/pineapple jam if needed (I have not done  that here)

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Coconut Bun/ Dilkush

Coconut bun is a tasty bun liked from my childhood. It my family favourite bun. We usually get this bun from one of our uncle, whenever he visits he get this bun for us. We always remember him with coconut bun. Some of our childhood favourites wont change even when we grown up. Likewise this is also one of my favourite still liked by me.

It is easy to make colourful bun mostly liked bu kids. You can make it with the choice of your colour red, pink, green, orange. You could make it more colourful by adding some tuitti fruitti too if you like it.

INGREDIENTS:

All Purpose Flour/ Maida- 2 cups
Egg-1 medium (Avoid if you are vegetarian)

Salt- 1/2 teaspoon

Dry yeast- 1½ teaspoons

Sugar- 1/4 cup

Milk, luke warm- 1/2 cup

Butter- 1/4 cup

For Filling:

Coconut- 3/4 cup

Cardamom powdered- 1/4 teaspoon

Sugar- 5-6 teaspoons

Cashew nuts, broken- 6

Raisins-15
Tuitti frutti- 2 tablespoon (optional)
Food Colour- I used Saffron orange colour.
(U could use pink, red, green colour of your choice)

Preparation Time: 2 hours

Cooking Time: 30 - 40 minutes

Cuisine: Indian

Serves- 6-8 pieces

PROCEDURE:

• In a cup take the warm milk and add the yeast, sugar, salt and mix well. Keep aside to ferment for 10 minutes or till the frothy layer appears on top of milk.

• In a broad bowl mix All purpose flour, beaten egg, and the milk mixture. Knead well to incorporate drizzle little milk if needed to make a slightly sticky dough. Now add the butter and knead to form ball shaped dough.

• Transfer the dough into a flat surface and knead for about 10 minutes to make a non sticky, soft and pliable dough.

• Keep the dough into a big bowl and cover it and keep it in a warm place to raise and double in size for about 1 hour in summer or more up to 2 hrs in winter days.

• Once the dough doubled in size punch the dough with hand and roll the dough and divide the dough into equal halves by cutting using a knife or pizza cutter.
• Roll both cut dough portions into balls using hands.
• Keep it on a floured surface and roll the both balls in to big circles with 1/2 inch thickness using rolling pin and stretching by hand.

• Mix well coconut, cardamom powder, sugar, chopped cashew nuts, raisins, tutti fruitti, food colour to make the filling. Drizzle few spoons (around 3 teaspoons) of water to wet the mixture; mix well.
• Keep the filling on top of one circular dough and cover it with another rolled dough and press well to seal the edges.(Press well otherwise the melted sugar syrup starts to leak from the opening)

• Keep the closed bun to raise for 1 hour in a warm place.
• Brush the bun's top with beaten egg yolk or melted butter.

• Bake the bun in preheated 180 degree oven till golden colour aappears on top and the bun cooked through.

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Cinnamon Rolls

I love cinnamon rolls. Whenever i go to the bread section i get tempted to these yummy rolls. So i always wanted to make them at my home. This week my long time wish come true by trying out this recipe published in Thursday Magazine. I was really excited when the bread rolls were inside my oven and felt happy when they comes out from the oven. They were soft and yummy with the cinnamon flavour.

Baking bread at home is a nice feeling and especially at the time of Christmas with the festive spirits. Sharing the baked goodies with friends and relatives is a happiness shall not be explained by words.

Preparation Time: 3 hours
Cooking Time: 20-30 minutes
Cuisine: Continental
Makes: 12 rolls

INGREDIENTS:
All purpose flour- 2 cups
Egg- 1 medium (optional, U can skip if u are vegetarian)
Milk, luke warm- 1/2 cup
Dry yeast- 1 teaspoon
Sugar- 1/4 cup
Salt- 1/2 teaspoon
Butter- 1/4 cup

For Cinnamon Filling:
Butter, softened- 1 teaspoon (to spread over the dough)
Cinnamon powder- 1 tablespoon
Sugar/ Brown sugar- 1/2 cup
Golden raisins- 2 tablespoons

PROCEDURE:

• In a glass take the warm milk and add sugar and salt and dry yeast. Mix well and set aside to ferment for about 10 minutes or till the frothy layer appears on top.

• In a broad bowl add the All purpose flour, egg (optional) and milk with yeast mixture and knead well to combine and form a dough. Sprinkle little extra milk if needed to make a slightly sticky dough.

• Add the softened butter and mix together and make a dough. Transfer the dough onto a flat surface and knead well to make a non sticky, soft and pliable dough.

• Keep the dough inside the same broad bowl and allow the dough to rest and ferment for about 1-2 hours the dough to double in size (1 hour in summer and up to 2 hours in winter)

• Take the bowl and punch the dough and make the dough into a big round ball shape; set aside.

• Mix Cinnamon and sugar together in a bowl. 
• Transfer the round dough  on top of a floured flat surface and roll the ball into a big rectangle.

• Spread the softened butter on top of the rolled dough using fingers.
• Spread the cinnamon sugar mixture all over the dough.
• From the longer side of the rectangle start to roll the dough to one end to other to make it as a log. 

• Cut the log into even sized roundels of 1 inch thickness using a knife.
• Place the cinnamon rolls on top of a baking tray lined with butter/wax paper.

• Allow the rolls to raise for about 1 hour in the baking try in a warm place.
• Transfer the baking tray in a 180 degree preheated oven and bake the rolls for 10 minutes. Take the tray and brush the rolls with butter or beaten egg yolk. Keep the tray again and bake till golden colour appears on the bread rolls for about 20 minutes.
• Dust with icing sugar/ powdered sugar if you like.

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Pepperoni Pizza/ Pizza Pepperoni

       Pepperoni is a cured sausage similar to the spicy salamis of Italy. Pepperoni Sausage is an American variety of salami usually made from cured pork or beef. American style pizzerias mostly make pizzas using this pepperoni. The main differences are that pepperoni has finer grain, is usually softer and is produced with an artificial casing.

For Pizza Bread Base:

All-purpose flour/ Maida-3 ½ cups

Dry yeast-2 teaspoons

Lukewarm water-1cup

Milk-1cup

Salt-1 teaspoons

Sugar-2 teaspoons

Olive oil-3 tablespoons

For Pepperoni Topping: (For 2-3 Pizzas)

Pizza Sauce - 6 tablespoons

Pepperoni Sausage, thinly sliced- 200 grams (30 slices )

Mozerella cheese (grated)- 200 grams/ approximately 1cup

PROCEDURE:

Pizza Bread Base:

• In a bowl take the lukewarm water and add  sugar. Then sprinkle the yeast and allow fermenting for 8-10 minutes.
• Meanwhile in a large bowl mix flour, salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil by hand.
• Then add the yeast and milk little by little to make a sticky dough.

• Then transfer the dough to a floured surface; knead and massage the dough for 5mts to make like chapatti dough.
• Transfer the dough to the greased bowl cover; keep for 2 hrs to ferment and rise in a warm place.
• After 2 hrs the dough would have doubled its size. Knock down the dough by punching the dough.

• Cover and keep aside for 30 minutes.
• Punch the dough and cut the dough using knife into equal 3parts.

Pepperoni Pizza:

• Slice the sausage into thin slices.
• Transfer the dough into a floured surface and stretch the dough using hand into a circle or a rectangular shape as you wish with little raised edges.
• Prick the base with skewer/fork. Now brush the base with olive oil.
• In pizza base apply a two tablespoons full of pizza sauce and spread evenly around the pizza leaving a centimeter at the edge of the pizza.

• Keep the grated cheese around the pizza and arrange the pepperoni slices evenly on top of that.
• Preheat the oven to 180^oC. Transfer the pizza to baking tray or pizza pan and bake till the cheese is melted and the base becomes crisp.

• Note: If you feel the dough is too dry add little more milk. If it becomes watery dough add some more flour and knead well.
• Keep the filling as you wish. You can add chopped onions, jalapenos or capsicum as well.

Makes 3 small sized pizzas.












I am linking this recipe to this event, Cook N Share What u Like Event & Giveaway.

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