Bite Me!

Having a big chunk of marzipan left over after icing the Christmas cake this year, I decided to use it up in making some stollen.  I've never actually made stollen before, and am not really a competent baker at the best of times, so I had a look online and decided to use this recipe, which looked fairly straightforward.  Well, it was fairly straightforward, so I got on with it and, with a happy heart, left the dough by the radiator to rise and trundled off to string up some fairy lights.

Some time later, I realised that the dough was not, in fact, rising at all.  Further investigation revealed the culprit to be the yeast I used, which had been rather out of date and, apparently, dead as a doornail.  Obviously, I should have noticed this when it failed to foam up when added to the milk, but, as I say, I'm not that hot at baking.  Fortunately, at this point my dad (who bakes all his own bread) came to the rescue.  A new lot of yeast, a new lot of kneading and another hour later, success!  The bally thing rose!  A swift knock-down, addition of marzipan and further rise later, and it was safe in the oven.  It turned out wonderfully well and was eaten with swift dispatch.  Phew.

This recipe definitely meets my approval - the stollen turned out surprisingly light and tasting a little like teacake.  The dough was rather sticky, so you might want to add some more flour if finding it difficult to knead, and I replaced the peel with chopped dried apricots. (I don't like peel.  In fact, does anyone?)  If you're not used to kneading dough with raisins in, I will point out that they will all fall out of the dough until you've kneaded it for a minute or two.  Since I'm an enthusiastic kneader, this meant that there were raisins raining all over the kitchen for a little while.  Secondly, do make sure you tuck the marzipan in securely - mine was threatening to leak from the bottom of the loaf when it came out of the oven, which also gave the whole loaf an inclination to split.

For a first effort, though, I feel it was entirely creditable.  Happy Christmas!