aka the best thing you’ll ever eat in your whole life
My mom makes this stollen bread every year for Christmas. It’s super delicious and the recipe she uses makes three whole pan fulls! Perfect for making for friends or to take to holiday parties. Or, if you’re like me-just hoard in your kitchen because December calories don’t count.
Ingredients:
For the topping mixture you’ll need:
2 cups chopped walnuts (or pecans are yummy too)
2 cups sugar
2 tsp maple flavoring
4 tsp cinnamon
(Go ahead and mix all of these ingredients together and set this mixture aside)
About two sticks of butter–you don’t need to add this to anything, you’ll melt it later, so set it aside.
For the bread you’ll need:
3 cups warm water
1/2 cup sugar
9 cups flour (approximately)
3 tbs yeast (I use the instant SAF yeast)
4 eggs
3 tsp salt
4 tbs oil
Mix the ingredients for the bread with only 2-3 cups of flour at first. Beat it all together with a mixer until everything is combined. (My kitchen aid can only handle so much so I also mix it all with a wooden spoon to combine everything if the mixer doesn’t get it all.)
Then add the rest of the flower a few cups at a time. You may want to add it in with the spoon rather than the mixer-you don’t want to over beat the dough.
When the dough is easy to handle, and not sticky, you’re ready to shape your stolen bread.
Divide the dough into 3 equal parts.
Grease 3 large (14 inch) pizza pans. I used the disposable ones you can get at the grocery store. They usually come in a three pack so its perfect.
Divide each of the dough balls into three more equal parts–so altogether you will have 9 balls of dough.
You’re going to roll out a ball of dough into a circle, roughly the size of the pan.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, just smush it all around until it fits.
Add a layer of melted butter. Spread it around with a spoon and make sure all the dough is covered.
Then roll out the next ball, place it on top of the first layer of dough, add more melted butter and topping mixture–and then again with the third ball of dough.
Once you have all three layers on the pan, you can set it aside and repeat these same steps for the next two pans. Each pan has three layers of dough, butter and topping mixture.
Now for the fun part!
Take a cup, place it in the center of the dough and press down.
Then you’ll take some scissors and cut the layers so there’s about 16 little sections. Don’t cut all the way through to the center, you want to leave just a little bit so they don’t completely break apart.
I found it easy to section it off into quarters first so the sections stay pretty even.
It’s so pretty!
Now start twisting each section. I twisted each part three times, all going the same way.
It’s alright if they don’t look perfect–you have two other chances to perfect your twisting skills. When you’re all done, let each pan sit for for a few minutes to rise. When they’re nice and puffy about double their original size, bake them (one at a time) for about 15 minutes. If you want to be exact, I baked them for 18 minutes. Just until they’re a nice golden brown.
The last step is the butter cream frosting. Add 1/2 cup of softened butter, 1 tsp vanilla, 2-3 cups powdered sugar and 1 tbs milk (or a little more if needed) all together. Mix these ingredients up until all the clumps are gone. You can add a little powdered sugar and milk as needed. You don’t want a thick frosting-you want to be able to drizzle it on, but still be able to stick to the bread.
Drizzle the frosting on the bread while it’s still warm and then dig in!
It’s SO delicious, and it makes your house smell heavenly. When I first made this recipe I had a ton of questions. I would ask my mom about every 30 seconds if I was doing it right.
So if you have any questions, feel free to ask!
Enjoy!!!
Kreativ-77 