Daring bakers challenge Dec 2010 - Stollen

After lot of thinking, I finally finished my second daring bakers challenge. I was thinking whether to do this month's challenge or not, because there was already lot of baking that was going on here at home. Mostly for the Christmas gifts :)

(I really hope that they enjoyed it .......)

Two days back I finished baking the stollen late after we had finished eating dinner. I made it eggless, shaped it in the traditional shape and I made only 1/6 th of the original recipe....yes I did scale down all the ingredients !

I wasnt so happy about the result, the bread was eatable, a bit dry and it looked like I should have shaped it into a loaf.

So below are the ingredients that I used to make the stollen,

All purpose flour - 130 gms

Luke warm water - 10 ml + 30 ml

Active dry yeast - 4 gms

Milk - 40 ml

Mascarpone cheese - 25 gms (I used this in place of butter)

Raw cane sugar (brown sugar) - 20 gms

Salt - 1/8 tsp

Cinnamon powder - 1/8 tsp

Orange zest - 2 pinches

Vanilla extract - 2/3 tsp

Mixed nuts (walnuts, almonds & cashewnuts) - 35 gms

Cranberries, dry - 10 gms

Kirsch wasser (cherry liqueur) - 1/2 tbsp

Method :

1. Sprinkle the yeast over the luke warm water and let it stand for 5 mins and then stir to dissolve the yeast.

2. Soak the cranberries in the kirsch wasser, keep aside.

3. Heat the milk and 30 ml water in a pan, and stir in the mascarpone cheese to dissolve in it. Once all the mascarpone dissolves remove the pan from heat and let the temperature of the mixture reduce to luke warm.

4. Mix in flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon powder and orange zest in a big bowl.

5. Mix in the vanilla extract and dissolved yeast into the milk-water-mascarpone cheese mixture, mix well.

6. Mix in the above liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and mix into a soft dough. It should not be sticky. Knead the dough for 6-8 mins, till the nuts or cranberries fall off the dough.

7. Apply oil to the dough and let it rest for 2 hours in a bowl covered with moist cloth or cling film.

8. Punch the dough down and the roll it into a rectangle and then start rolling from one side and make a wreath by joining the ends. Make cuts using a pair of scissors.

9. Let this dough rest for another 2 hours loosely covered with plastic wrap.

10. Preheat the oven at 180°C and bake for 12 minutes and then turn the tray 180 degrees and bake it for another 15 minutes till done.

Thanks for visiting my blog :)