Nana's Christmas Stollen

This is pretty close to the recipe I have used for years from my great grandfather, a German baker. However, I must comment on one review so others do not try this. If you want stollen, you need to use cardamom. Nutmeg belongs in eggnog.

My mom died before she could write down her stollen recipe. It has been over five years since we had it. After making this recipe, it was everything that I remembered hers to be.

If you are using quick yeast in the jar the measurement is 2 1/2 tablespoons. Very nice dough.

Perfect! I doubled the fruit but no other changes. (I used cranberries, apricots, cherries, plums and also sliced almonds). The dough turned out wonderfully. Mixed it in my Kitchenaid mixer. Absolutely no flour adjustments needed. I dusted the baked loaves (4) generously with powdered sugar. Easy recipe and like ones I made years ago but less work! I'll be making it more often now. Thank you for bringing back a tradition.

I made this recipe as gifts at Christmas. The dough was beautiful but I would probably add more fruit next time I make it. I will definitely make it again. By the way, I used 2 packets of yeast and that worked fine (there seemed to be some confusion about the amount of yeast to use.

Very delicious! My husband likes to bake breads and he made this and it was better than his grandfather's German recipe that had been used for years and years! He added dried cranberries, raisins, red and green candied cherries and slivered almonds. Drizzled the top with a sugar glaze(powdered sugar, milk and almond extract)and decorated top with red and green candied cherry halves on icing. He/I will always use this recipe every Christmas from now on! Everyone loved it. Thanks!

I used 3 whole eggs instead of the eggs and yolks. This is a wonderful recipe but next time I make it I will add twice as much fruit. I put a glaze on it and decorated with green and red sprinkles. I used nutmeg instead of cardomon. This is good!

This recipe was good. I do think that the amount of dry active yeast listed is incorrect. I thought it sounded like alot. I found another recipe with similiar ingredients. It calls for .25oz of yeast. The yeast comes in .25oz packages. Is that what the recipe should have 1 (.25oz) package? Not 1 oz of yeast.

I just made this and it was awesome! I only made two per batch and braided the dough. After it cooled I made the Butter Cream Frosting II from Allrecipes and frosted them, added some red and green colored sugar and a few more candied cherries. Very nice. I'm going to make some for Christmas gifts, but I will divide the dough into thirds. This was an excellent recipe!

I couldn't even get it in the oven. Is it 5&2/3 cup of flour or 5, 2/3c of flour? If it's 5, 2/3 why not just say 3 cups? The dough was like soup and I was not able to knead it.

Overall a nice recipe, but not quite what I was expecting. Most stollens I've had are quite a bit sweeter than this one, though the lesser sugar here is a plus on the health side. I doubled the fruit as other reviews suggested and am very glad I did! My family doesn't like candied fruit, so along with 1 cup raisins I used 1 cup dried cranberries, 1 cup chopped California slab apricots and 1 tablespoon fresh orange zest...Yum! We couldn't even taste the cardamom, so next time I will increase it to at least 1 teaspoon. I also like marzipan filling in my stollen; however, I didn't have any so I used 2 teaspoons almond extract in the dough instead. I completely agree with the previous reviewer in that 375 degrees was too high...my stollen was too brown with slightly burnt bottoms as well. Next time I'll try 350 degrees. Also, I too prefer the traditional sifted powdered sugar on top. A good basic recipe with a few changes...ended up with 4 medium-sized loaves which was good for gift giving.

I think this recipe was good, all in all. I didn't have a food processor, so I just added the dry ingedients to the wet ingredients. I also did not like the baking time, or the tempurature called for in this recipe. My bottoms were a bit on the burnt side. Next time I will bake at 350. I also did not use icing, because traditional stollen has dusted powdered sugar on top. I also added 1/2 C of chopped almonds as well.

This stollen is delicious. Not too difficult to make, and disappears quickly!

I feel like i'm reading something wrong. I followed all the measurements exactly but there seems to be tool much wet ingredients or not enough dry. I didn't even have a dough it was more like a really sticky soupy blob...what did i do wrong?

Very good recipe! Easy to follow, my bread turned out PERFECT! Here are the changes I made: sub for cherries and citron- I added cranberries and orange zest. After I removed from the oven I dusted with powdered sugar. Got rave reviews from my very German family!

I used (candied) fruitcake mix in place of the raisins, citrus peel, and candied cherries - delicious!

This bread turned out really well. Mine was kind of like stollen on steroids. I never had yeast rise as well as it did with this recipe! Something to consider: The recipe says to combine the 3 cups of flour with the dry yeast, add the liquids and process and let rise. Then you add the remaining 2 2/3 cups of flour. But a problem I had was that after the first processing in a food processor, it bubbled up everywhere. The yeast exploded and volcanoed out of the processor! So really, all that needs to be done after mixing in the liquids with the yeast/flour is to pour it into a bowl and then hand-mix the rest of the flour and pre-chopped candies/nuts/whatever. And then let it rise in the bowl. I was scraping gooey yeast drippings off the food processor and counter. But the bread still turned out really great, moist, and not over-sweet. Mine were huge and I got 3 good loaves out of it. The family says this recipe tops Betty Crocker's (what I used last Christmas). Thank you for sharing your recipe!

I made this for the first time for Christmas - and was very pleased with the result. I even did the first mix in my bread oven, and did the second round of fruit and flour by hand on the bench - with fruit popping everywhere! Next go will add more cardamon,the extra fruit (already did that)and half the mix to see how it goes all mixed in my bread machine. The original recipe is way too big to fit! The recipe was very easy to follow - although I got my yeast measurement muddled (we don't use ounces any more). It was plenty active enough with one sachet of dry yeast for the full mix.

I made this for my husband for Christmas and he LOVED it! I've tried other recipes but this is the best. This will be my stollen recipe from now on.

Family raved about it! Wonderful recipe. And easy...I knew it was too much yeast so only used 1/2 oz (two packets, worked fine; also used currants (soak and drain)not raisins; dried cranberries rather than candied cherries, finely chopped candied ginger, and slivered almonds, doubling the total amount of fruit. Added ground lemon peel. Used the food processor to blend second step, but let it rise in big bowl, covered. Mixed in rest of flour, etc, by hand, then kneaded. Worked fine. I baked at 350 convection for 20 mins. Perfect!

Even without much experience in yeast breads I found this recipe easy (time consuming, but easy) and it turned out perfectly. I used one packet of yeast and doubled the fruit. It made beautiful stollen I was proud to share with our friends.

I made this for my sunday school Christmas dinner and it was a big hit just one thing... Pay attention to the size of your food processor

Love this even better with real lemon peel and dried cherries instead of candies citrus peel & cherries.

Nice texture and very easy for a sweet bread. I added only dried blueberries, cherries and cranberries plus an extra 1/4 tsp of cardamon, baked at 350 for 25 min and sprinkled with icing sugar when fresh out of the oven. Delicious. I made 3 loaves and they were a nice size.

Not like the stollen I remember as a child.But everyone seemed to like it.I probably will keep searching. Thank you for sharing.

I heeded the advice in the reviews and doubled the fruit. I also added a 1/2 tsp of lemon peel and orange peel. Use XL eggs. The yolks are bigger and will lend for a richer batter. Used the Kitchenaid mixer for kneading--will never knead by hand again. Before baking I flattened each loaf, spread it with almond paste, then folded it back to its original shape. This adds a little sweetness.

Followed the recipe exactly except that I added a cinnamon/sugar mixture on top of the butter before I baked it. Great recipe. Thanks.

YUM!! Best recipe I've tried! But I cut the yeast to one Tablespoon of dry active yeast. Lovely texture & moist, but not too moist. I also used my KitchenAide mixer instead of the food processor, I'm sure the FP would have been fine, I just knew mine wouldn't hold 5 2/3 cups of flour. Spouse did miss the almond paste for the center, so I'll be using this recipe again next year with that addition.

Very yummy. I only gave it 4 stars because the time and temp was off, and I added Almond flavoring.

Fantastic...i made this for Christmas and everyone loved it!

I wish I had read all the reviews and taken heed on the amount of flour going into my bread machine. It rose, spilled out all over and made one heck of a mess. I salvaged what I could, and the stollen turned out very nice! A word to the wise: keep checking the machine to see how the dough is rising. The next time I baked this, I dumped it out onto my floured board when it began to get out of control. Then just kept adding flour until the consistency was right. This is a good recipe - just not for cooks who freak out when the dough gets yucky!

I liked it. I halved the recipe (everything except for the fruit) and got two good size loafs. I agree with others, the fruit needs to be doubled. Since the bread itself is not very sweet, the fruit adds additional sweetness and makes it better. The dough was a pleasure to work with. My loafs were a little dry for my taste. I also think that 375 F is a little high, next time i will bake them at 350.

This sounds great! I have my own Stollen recipe here but I WILL try this one (substituting the candied fruit though)

Magnificent. I used 4 x 8g sachets of dry yeast, 3 whole eggs, and somewhat more fruit in mine. My cardamon was giving me the willies trying to crush it so i put in what I had and added some allspice. YUM YUM YUM I'm the greatest hero in the family (my mum totally flopped at her stollen attempt).Merry Christmas

Almost all of the Stollen breads I have had in my life, including my German Grandmothers, were rather dry. This came out very well. Nicely moist. I did make a few changes based on previous reviews. I lowered the temp to 350f, increased the cardamom to 1 tsp, and added one tsp of almond extract. I used the full amount (1oz) of yeast and my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. As to the candied fruit, I use the same total amount, of a store bought fruit cake mix, and the raisins. The actual time from start, to seeing my three loaves on the cooling rack, was 3hrs and 25min.

i used this recipe for the first time last week. Heeding the suggestions to increase the amount of fruit, I did that, and I too used three whole eggs instead of two eggs and two yolks. I made sure not to work in too much flour, keeping it soft but not sticky. The bread rose wonderfully, and yielded a wonderful fragrance in baking. I'd made three loaves, so put two into plastic bags as soon as they were cool enough, and we ate one within a day of baking. The extra loaves were kept just above freezing in our garage. I frosted the Stollen with a creamy frosting like "Jeannie's," made popular by Jeannie's Bakery in Winnipeg. The bread was moist and flavourful. I was surprised then, to find the bread dry when I sliced the just-frosted loaves to serve to guests yesterday. A retired professional baker was among the guests, so I asked his advice. He was puzzled. Please advise.

I doubled the fruits and on the second batch, I only baked it for 23 mins. I might even lower it another 2 mins. Otherwise it tastes just like my Pop-pop’s.

Wonderfull. I made for my husband and he loved it!

I made this exactly as written other than making two braided loaves rather than the 3 or 4 folded loaves. Honestly, at this time I haven’t even tasted it because I’m bringing it to Thanksgiving. It looks and smells good though! I sure hope all that yeast doesn’t cause us all to get gas, lol

The directions did not seem to be complete. 5 cups of flour was to much for the amount of dried fruit it called for. Directions were not to good on describing the length of time to knead. It tasted okay but I ended up with 3 large loaves. I am going to find a different recipe

Delicious, I made it for Christmas ! Not dry like other recipies.

This is as good as the ones my mother used to make. I double all fruit, double cardamon and use fresh grated orange peel and walnuts as well. The almonds slivers only for top. Finish it off with a dusting of powder sugar right out of oven.