The Christmas stollen with a good conscience

When you think of a Christmas stollen, many of you probably don’t think of it as having no butter, no egg, or no milk, do you? We got this Stollen recipe à la Rudolfshausen Castle from the “castle cook” Helene Walterskirchen. The great thing about this recipe is that it is vegan, low fat and gluten free. So you can snack on the stollen without a bad conscience. And this recipe is also very suitable for allergy sufferers. Many thanks at this point to
Rudolfshausen Castle
and Helene Walterskirchen.

Ingredients for the stollen

• 300 g rice flour
• 1 organic fresh yeast (dry yeast is also possible) from Bioreal/Agrano
• some lukewarm water for the yeast
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 weak tablespoon olive oil
• 200 g organic raisins
• some warm water for soaking the raisins
• 1 package of candied orange peel (cubed) in organic quality
• 1 package of candied lemon peel (cubed) in organic quality
• 250 g hazelnuts (ground) in organic quality
• 250 g dates without stone (cut into pieces) in organic quality
• 1 cup rice syrup for sweetening
• ½ cup rice syrup to coat the baked stollen
• Powdered sugar for sprinkling
• to process the stollen dough: a little extra rice flour

preparation

First, prepare the yeast dough: a small to medium bowl, put the flour in it, make a pit in the flour, and then put the yeast dough in it. Then take an oatmeal, crumble the yeast into it, add salt and sugar and some lukewarm water (the oatmeal should be only half full). Then mix everything well with a fork (the yeast must be completely dissolved). Then pour the yeast dough into the pit of the flour and sprinkle some rice flour on top. Cover with a cloth and put the bowl warm, for example, on the central heating or in an oven with 50 degrees Celsius. Let stand for approx. 1 hr. so that the yeast dough can rise (you will see it by the bubbles it forms).

If the yeast dough does not rise, you will have to try again with a different yeast. The rising of the yeast dough is a sign that afterwards the yeast dough will also rise. When the yeast dough has risen, add the oil to the dough, possibly with some more warm water, and work the mixture through with your hands until a dough forms. The more and the better you work the yeast dough through, the smoother it will be. When the dough no longer sticks to the bowl but forms a lump of dough, it is ready to be made into a stollen. It is best to let it rest for another half hour or a full hour so that it can rise and become more airy (at warm room temperature).

Meanwhile, soak the raisins in the warm water and grind the whole hazelnuts into pieces (crushed – not finely ground). Then put the yeast dough on a board on which you have previously sprinkled rice flour (so that the yeast dough does not stick; when the flour is used up, sprinkle rice flour under it every now and then) and add the ingredients bit by bit, i.e. raisins, nuts, candied orange peel and lemon peel, dates and also the rice syrup. Now mix everything vigorously with your hands and work through (for a Stollen you need a lot of arm strength, because the better you knead the better the dough mass will be).

When the first part of the ingredients is incorporated, add the second part and again incorporate everything vigorously. When all the ingredients are incorporated and the dough is nice and pliable, form a stollen loaf and place on a baking sheet (on baking paper).

You can now put the stollen in the oven (don’t forget to preheat for about 10 min) and bake it for one hour on a yeast plait program of your oven. Afterwards, leave the stollen in the oven for a while (with the door open) so that it cools down slowly. Then remove the stollen, place it on a wooden board and brush it with the remaining rice syrup. Then sprinkle with powdered sugar. When the stollen is completely cooled, wrap it well (e.g. organic plastic bag) and put it in the cellar or attic or otherwise a cool place in the house so that it can infuse for a few days and develop all its flavor. When you cut it, put the rest of the stollen back in the cold (otherwise it will dry out and become dry).

The Christmas stollen with a good conscience is of course not the only recipe from Rudolshausen Castle. Here are more recipes from the castle kitchen: https://www.schlossrudolfshausen.de/category/schloss-rezept-empfehlungen-de/

And here you can find our last recipe: Berti’s whole wheat gingerbread