Saxon Christmas Recipes

Saschen Rezepte

 

 

Christstollen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients for the fruit mix:

• 500g raisins
• 400g candied orange peel
• 70g candied lemon peel
• 150g coarsely chopped almonds
• 75ml rum
• 10 drops of oil of bitter almonds
• 1 vanilla pod (scratched out mallow)
• rubbed-off peel of both one untreated
orange and lemon
• 140ml rum blend or anything similar

Ingredients for the initial dough:
300g wheat flour - type 550
75g yeast
150-200ml milk - ca. 35°C

Ingredients for the dough:
300g wheat flour - type 405
100g milk - ca. 35°C
10g salt
3g nutmeg flower - clove
250g butter
50g lard

Ingredients for decoration:
300g butter
200g icing sugar

Thoroughly mingle the fruit mix in a metallic bowl on the previous day, cover with foil and allow to mature overnight in a warm place. For the initial dough, dissolve the yeast in cold milk and put the flour into a large metallic bowl. Add the dissolved yeast and knead it with a hand mixer into a smooth dough.

Cover with a cloth and allow to stand (at room temperature) until it has doubled. Cut the butter into small pieces and spread it with the remaining milk, flour, salt and the stollen spices over the initial dough and knead (use high quality butter!). Cover with a cloth and allow to stand (at room temperature) until it has doubled. Cut the butter into small pieces and spread it with the remaining milk, flour, salt and the stollen spices over the initial dough and knead (use high quality butter!).

Only as soon as the butter has thoroughly blended with the dough, spread it with the fruit mix and hand-knead it into the yeast dough and form it into a ball shape. Now scatter flour on top and allow to rise for 30 minutes under a moist cloth in a warm place. Topple the dough over onto a floured board and form it by hand into a rectangular shape. Fold one long side over, then the other on top. Double up the package, put it into the bowl, dust it with flour and allow to stand covered for 30 minutes.

Preheat the baking oven up to 190°C, wipe a thin layer of butter onto the baking plate, halve the stollen and form each part into a sphere. Get the dough ball into a longish shape, while always keeping the seam upwards.

Note: When putting the stollen onto the baking plate, the seam, however, has to show face down. After another rest of 15-45 minutes (depending on the prevailing room temperature), both loaves of stollen are slid into the hot baking oven and the temperature is immediately reduced to 165°C. Baking time is at thirty to forty minutes for a two-pound stollen. Brush the stollen, which is still hot, with 100 g of liquid butter and powder with icing and vanilla sugar.

Wrap the stollen into aluminium foil and allow to rest for 24 hours.

 

Then, devour.

 

 

Spritz Cookies

Ingredients for approx. 80 cookies:

 

200 to 250 g (7 to just under 9 oz.) butter (recommended: 225 g or 8 oz.)
100 g (3.5 oz.) sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
a pinch of salt
375 g (just under 13 oz.) flour
a pinch of baking powder

You will also need a pastry tube, a meat grinder with the proper attachment or a “cookie press gun.” You’ll get the best results by using a meat grinder. While you can also work with a pastry tube, it’s doubly hard!

 

Combine all ingredients into a pastry mix. If you will be using a meat grinder, you can keep the dough in the refrigerator, but doing so is not recommended if you will be using just a pastry tube or a cookie press gun – you will then only be making your work all that much harder!

Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F) and line a baking tray with baking paper. Either: “squirt” the dough through a meat grinder fitted with a Spritz cookie attach-ment, cut into strips approximately 4cm (1½ inch) long and arrange on the baking tray.

Or: squirt the dough from the pastry tube or cookie press gun onto the baking tray in the form of squiggles, bars, S-shapes, etc. Bake for about 10-15 minutes until the cookies are just a pale golden brown. Let cool. Use your imagination in decorating with melted chocolate or chocolate icing. Let the chocolate harden fully before boxing up your traditional Saxon Spritz cookies.

 

 

Cappuccino-gingerbread stars

Ingredients for approx. 40 cookies:

 

26 g (1 oz.) cappuccino powder
180 g (6⅓ oz.) butter
80 g (just under 3 oz.) powdered sugar
a pinch of salt
2 tsp. vanilla sugar
7 tsp. gingerbread spices
40 g (1.5 oz.) starch
2 egg yolks
100 g (3.5 oz.) mocha chocolate
200 g (7 oz.) praline (chocolate nougat)
ca. 40 mocha beans
280 g (9⅞ oz.) flour

 

Dissolve the cappuccino powder in 2 tbsp. of hot water. Stir the butter, powdered sugar, salt and vanilla sugar together until smooth. Stir in the egg yolks. Sift the flour and starch together and then quickly blend in the dissolved cappuccino powder and 4 tsp. of the gingerbread spicing.

Roll dough up in foil and refrigerate for 1 hour. On a flour-dusted working surface, roll out the dough into a thin layer (½ cm / ¼ inch) and cut out small stars (approx. 3 cm or just over an inch across). Place stars onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake 8-10 minutes in an oven preheated to 160°C (320°F). Remove cookies from the tray and let cool.To make the filling, dice the mocha chocolate into coarse chunks and then melt in a double saucepan or in a microwave.

Finely mince the praline and then evenly stir in with the remaining gingerbread spices. Refrigerate the cream briefly until it is of a consistency to be squirted. Fill most of it into a piping bag with a small spout, keeping just a teaspoon aside for later decoration. Squirt the cream onto half of your cookies and then cover with one of the remaining cookies. Use the leftover cream to anchor one mocha bean to the top of each cookie duo and let harden.

 

Worry about your waistline and blood sugars in the new year.