Recipe: Stoll

Stoll. Photo / Doug Sherring

This is a Dutch Christmas recipe but I think the spice, fruit and almond pulls everything together for this time of the year. It makes a large loaf and would be perfect to have on hand for the weekend.

750g standard flower
3 dsp of instant dry yeast
300ml milk
2 egg yolks
175g butter
100g caster sugar
Grated rind of 2 lemons
2 tbs rum
400g raisins (currants)
30g mixed peel
75 almond paste, or almond flour
1 tsp salt

1 Warm the milk (luke warm) and add yeast. For best results, add a little sugar.

2 Once frothy, add to flour, chop up butter in small pieces and add yolks, salt and sugar. Mix well and knead by hand on steel base. Knead until well mixed and elastic to touch. Rest in a warm place covered with a tea towel. After 20 minutes, the dough should have risen. Knead again and add all fruit and mixed peel. Once well mixed and kneaded, rest again for another 20 minutes. Once risen, knead again and flatten to put almond sausage in middle and fold over. Make sure it is well closed up. Place in a luke-warm oven for 10 minutes and increase the heat to 180C. Leave in the oven for 30 minutes or until cooked.

3 Once out of the oven, mix some butter, sugar and lemon juice and coat the bread for nice gloss.

Almond sausage: Mix almond flour with lemon juice and sugar to make a nice consistency, roll into a ball and put into fridge to cool and become firm. Once ready to put into the bread, roll into a sausage shape.

Fruit mixture: The 400g of raisins can be replaced with mixture of chopped dried fruit, such as sultanas, cranberries and apricots.

Some tips:

* When mixing the fruit with the dough it helps to keep your hands wet to make the fruit more adhesive with the dough.

* To test bread is ready, put a knitting needle in the bread. If the dough sticks to the needle the loaf is not ready yet. Bread can be dusted with icing sugar for decoration.