Whole Wheat Christmas Stollen

Festivals bring happiness. It is the time to gift and share. It is also the time when a little indulgence is pardonable. I generally do not pay much attention to the calorie count of the goodies around this season. After all, these are shared amongst friends and family. And the best part of home baking is that one play with the ingredients. Small changes like adding whole wheat flour and substituting butter with healthy oil makes the recipes healthier besides giving a personal touch. 

I have been on a festive bread baking spree.  I love exploring and trying out the festive breads from different corners of the world. Made Stollen yesterday.

A Stollen is a fruit cake containing dried fruit and often marzipan and covered with sugar, powdered sugar or icing sugar. The cake is usually made with chopped candied fruit and/or dried fruit, nuts and spices. Stollen is a traditional German cake, usually eaten during the Christmas season, when it is called  Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen.

Stollen is a bread-like fruitcake made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Candied orange peel and candied citrus peel, raisins and almonds, and different spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs, vanilla, other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan may also be added to the Stollen dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished cake is sprinkled with icing sugar.

(Source- Wikipedia)

Whole Wheat Christmas Stollen

Adapted from myrecipes.com myrecipes.com

This is how I made Whole Wheat Christmas Stollen

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 ½ to 2 ¾ cups all purpose flour

½ cup milk

¼ cup granulated sugar

6 tablespoons butter

2 ¼ teaspoons instant dried yeast

2 eggs

½ cup orange juice

1/3 cup mix of dried and sweetened cranberries and black currants

1/3 cup chopped dried figs

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup candied peels

½ cup sliced almonds

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 ½ teaspoon grated zest

1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar

Method

Take orange juice in a bowl, add raisins, cranberries, black currants and chopped figs and keep for 20 minutes.

Heat milk, add sugar and yeast. Mix and keep for 15 minutes. Add butter. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add orange juice and fruits. Add almonds, candied peels and zest.

Whisk together whole wheat flour, 2 cups all purpose flour, salt, and grated nutmeg.

Add flour mixture to yeast mixture, stirring till a soft dough forms. The dough will be quite sticky at this point of time. With floured hands, knead for 5 to 8 minutes adding the remaining all purpose flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. The dough will soon become manageable, smooth and elastic.

Place dough in an oil coated dough, turn the dough to coat oil all over. Cover and let it rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Punch dough down, divide into two equal parts. Roll each part into 11 x 6 inch oval. Fold 1 short end towards center; fold other short end also towards center until it overlaps the first end. Place loaves with seam side down on a greased baking tray. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C for 10 minutes.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or till the loaves turn golden. Cool on wire rack.

Dust with confectioner’s sugar before serving.

Submitted for Yeastspotting