Recipe: 'Tis the Stollen Season

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I like to make pannetone and stollen, Italian and German holiday breads respectively. Both have raisins, nuts and candied fruit in them – similar to the fruitcake concept. But while fruitcake is dark, dense, intense, and broody, Pannetone is pale yellow, sunny, light and airy – the recipe calls for multiple risings of the dough. Stollen is also light and cheerful, and my recipe is below.

Stollen

Pannetone calls for fennel seeds and stollen doesn't, but since I like what the fennel seeds add, I put them into stollen too.

Arie, the chef at my Bistro, likes to make grappa and I'd been experimenting with infusing the grappa with different herbs and seeds, including fennel. I used the grappa for cooking already (in fact put some into one of my Thanksgiving side dishes) and now just have the grappa-infused fennel seeds left over for this recipe.

At the Bistro we serve some candied orange peels dipped in chocolate, but in this case I use the plain candied peels and dried cranberries. I make this bread in my bread machine, but you don't need a bread machine for it.

• 1 cup milk, warmed in microwave for about 30 seconds, but not hot
• 3 teaspoons bread yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 stick butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds (optional)
• 4 cups bread flour
• Zest from one lemon
• 1 cup raisins and/or dried cranberries
• ¾ cup candied orange pieces or other candied fruit
• ¾ cup slivered almonds and/or chopped or whole pecans

Put the yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar into the warm milk in a large bowl. It should be the same temperature as a baby bottle – use the old trick of putting a few drops on your inner wrist to check whether it's too hot. Cut up the butter into small pieces and put into the bowl. Add the eggs, salt, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and fennel seeds. Stir together, melting the butter.

Add 4 cups of flour. The dough will be a little sticky. Put into the refrigerator for about a half hour to chill it.

Take it out and knead it on a floured board the same way you would ordinarily knead bread, also adding the lemon zest, candied fruit and nuts into the dough as you knead. Pat the dough into a long oval ¼ inch thick. Then fold the oval lengthwise so that it forms a long flat loaf, pressing down along the edge to secure.

Place on a buttered cookie sheet, cover with a towel, and let rise until at least double in size. Preheat oven to 375° and bake for 35 minutes.

Glaze

I don't usually glaze it, but here's a glaze that sounds good. You put it on the stollen when it's still warm from the oven. Mix 1 cup confectioner's sugar with 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Add 1-2 tablespoons water to get a good consistency. Drizzle it on. Sprinkle more chopped nuts on top.