Mini Stollen

Ok, I'm taking a break from the muffin bakings. Wanna do something different. Since X'Mas is just round the corner, many magazines featured beautifullly plump stollens in pretty settings. I was so enticed with one picture that I started the baking at 11pm yesternight! Btw, Stollen is a rich yeast bread containing raisins, citron, and chopped nutmeats. But mine contained half of what the defination mentioned. Mine are full of chopped dried peaches, dried figs, dates, honey dates and raisins. Take a look at Martha Steward's Stollen. Chockfull of fruit bits there!

I browse thru my recipe book and found one simple stollen to start with. Within 20 minutes, the stollen was left aside to rose 2x its size. That'll probably took 45 minutes. Then into the oven for a short bake of 20-25 minutes. I was unsure on how the final result would be. So once the oven timer went off, I took it out and let it cool for a further 10 minutes before slicing it.

I whispered a prayer before my knife went thru it. Guess what...? The stollen was soft! I sliced a couple and had them with a spread of salted butter. Mmmmm... I am sure to have a sound sleep after this. I love stollens!

I need to work a lot on the pic takings though. Those mags featured an awfully cool settings of stollens in a basket with pretty napkins around and underneath. Then, there were the damn fresh flowers around to porp-up the already beautiful settings. Nvm... I suppose the old bread on the wooden chopping board might just do the trick here. Apart from that, I had a gleaming idea of using the aluminium foil as a base for pic takings. BoOoring laaa..... But nevertheless, the stollen was fantastic. In fact, the whole loaf was eaten by yours truly without sharing it with "B". Oh... I was just plain mad at him yesternight. Mad... mad... mad... hmph...!

Ingredients for Mini Stollen
4-5 cups AP flour
1 cup UHT milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup vege oil
3/4 cup water
1 tsp salt
6 tsp instant yeast
chopped dried fruits / nuts as desired
Method
In a bowl, warm up milk. Add in sugar, vege oil, water and salt. DO NOT bring the milk to a boiling point. Just luke warm. Add in 2 cupsAP flour. In another bowl, pour in 2 cups AP flour and yeast. Add in the milk mixture into the dry mixture. Stir till thoroughly mixed. Add in the extra cup of AP flour if the batter's still too sticky. On a powdered surface, knead for 15 minutes. Let it rest for another 45-60 minutes or till it doubled in size. Roll it with the dried fruits and shaped. Bake @ 180-200'C for 20-25 minutes. Brush on some milk for that shiny top effect.