Stollen - German Christmas Bread

For those of you who have never had Stollen, let me properly introduce you. World, meet Stollen.

I know there are probably hundreds of cultural and ethnic variations of this holiday dessert but in its simplest form it is just a Christmas quick bread with a batter much like a muffin or quick bread you are already familiar with.  In the U.S., we can usually find Stollen in high end grocery stores around Christmas and in January, you may see them discounted. If you are tempted, just take one home and try. They are truly delicious.

What makes this type of "quick bread" special is that the main ingredient is quark. I have posted the recipe recently and to make it at home is really quite an easy task so give it a try. If you are American or live in the U.S., I should say, it will be very difficult to find, which is why I highly recommend making it yourself.

I suppose a thick Greek yogurt or Kefir cheese might work as a substitute but if you have even the slightest bit of curiosity, then quark should be on your bucket list of things to do in the kitchen before you forget...  It takes about two to three days to make quark ahead of time but don't let that stop you from exploring two new things at the same time: Quark and Stollen. I promise you, you will not be disappointed so double up and make two batches while you are at it!

This recipe was provided by my mother-in-law who is from Austria but I had to make a few tweaks in order to work with what I had in my pantry. Oddly, I had just made quark, but I didn't have currants so I used dried cherries, for instance. Her recipe called for ground hazelnuts, which surely, would be divine, but I only had almonds, so I used those instead.  I didn't have rum extract so I used vanilla. Go with your best guess substitutes and if you have any questions, just leave a comment.

Stollen Ingredients:

• 500 g soft white wheat ground yesterday (all-purpose or pastry flour is just fine)
• 200 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 250 g ground almonds
• 500 g quark
• 125 g raisins
• 125 g currants or dried cherries
• 125 g butter
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp rum flavoring or vanilla extract.

Baking:
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

This was amazing and did not last the week even when we tried very hard to eat just one piece. :) I make two at a time because I usually make about 1000 g of quark at a time.  If you do make two, these freeze very well so just wrap up the extra stollen tightly and securely in plastic wrap, then put it in a large gallon freezer bag and freeze until you need a Christmas pick-me-up.

When you are ready to eat it, take the wrapped stollen out of the freezer bag and plastic wrap and let it defrost on a plate in the fridge or kitchen counter until you are ready to serve. This is where the quark shines... The quark is what will keep it from getting dried out and it will stay moist on the kitchen counter even if left out overnight loosely covered with foil or a clean towel.

Hope you like it and I'd love to hear from you if you do decide to try it!

Best German Cheesecake I Ever Made

Kasekuchen, I love you.  You are everything I never knew I was missing in American Cheesecake.

Seriously, this cheesecake will rock an American's WORLD!  It's everything we love about a good apple pie, it's pie crust + everything creamy dreamy we love in a good cheesecake. I have to make the distinction between American and German now because, folks, who knew? But there is a difference...

I hate the idea of making pie crust, don't know why, won't analyze it here. My first thought, when I first saw this made, was, "Whatever. Germans. SO perfect." LOL! Just kidding, but the whole pie crust sorta put me off to it. At first.

I got brave. I asked my mother in law for the recipe. Clever lady that she is, she took her iPad to her cookbook and sent me a jpg of the recipe, carefully translating and marking the ingredients in English for my benefit.  I was smitten. She wanted me to try.

The pie crust was the easiest thing I have ever made to date, except perhaps for the filling of this cheesecake, which also makes German cheesecakes quite distinct. At first, I just thought they were being fancy and calling cream cheese by another name, but it is in fact, a distinct and separate cheese culture (flavor) from American cream cheese.

Europeans are as passionate about quark (yep quark) as Americans are about cream cheese. I can absolutely understand why and I'm a total fan now... But the one thing that quark has over cream cheese is it's ridiculously easy to make at home. Cream cheese is also fairly easy, but quark is by far the easiest soft cheese to make in your home kitchen, even easier than yogurt.  Like a brat, I almost don't want to share my cool little secret, but something compels me to do it, you lucky dogs! I will share it in another post. :)

Crust:
Quickest homemade shortcrust on the planet. If using a 9" spring form pan, you will want to double the filling recipe which follows but the crust proportions below work perfectly in a 9" x 3" round pan.

• 50 g sugar
• 100 g cold butter
• 150 g flour
• A pinch of salt

Pulse in food processor until it just forms a ball. Dump dough onto sheet of plastic wrap and using the wrap form the dough into a ball. Seal the dough well in the plastic wrap and refrigerated at least 30 minutes or until ready to roll out.

Butter and dust your spring form pan with flour. You could also use parchment to line the bottom and sides of your pan, but I followed the recipe instructions to grease and flour.

Roll out dough into a large square working fast and loosening dough as you roll with flour so it wont stick.

Use the springform pan as a template to cut a circle from the dough and this is the bottom crust so lay it inside the bottom of the pan. Use the remaining strips of dough to press into the sides. Doesn't have to be perfect nor is it necessary to go all the way up the sides. Germans tend to do a half-side thing, which actually looks quite pretty. If you have holes or tears, just gently press in little bits of dough to form a crust for the sides. In fact, you can really just patch the sides and seal it all together to make it super quick. I've seen it done all kinds of ways and asl long as you've got sides, you have done well.

Filling:

• 500 g quark (cream cheese if you can't make your own quark; not the same but close...)
• 100 g sugar
• 100 g sour cream
• 2 eggs separated/ eggwhites beaten with dash of salt to form stiff peaks tolls added to cheese mixture
• Vanilla
• 1 tbsp corn starch

In a bowl, cream together the quark, sour cream, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and corn starch.  

In a small bowl, beat the egg whites into stiff peaks. You can whip the tar out of it, don't worry, the stiffer the egg whites, the better they will hold up this cheesecake.  Fold in the stiff egg whites to the cheese mixture.

Add this batter to your spring form pan with the crust. 

Bake at 340 degrees F for 1 hr. 

**Note:  Do not use a baking stone or any other pan on your rack or it will affect the rise. If it cracks, who cares? My first one did because I used a baking stone and tried to let it cool down in the oven. Bad idea... It caused a large crack but I didn't let it get me down. It was one of the best cheesecakes I have ever personally made and let's say, I have made a few.

** Another Note: for my 9 inch springform I doubled the filling above and that was perfect.  Otherwise, that might nicely fit into a 6" mini spring form and still give the same tall cheesecake effect Americans (myself included) love.

A word about European measurements:
When you see the measurements above, don't freak out. I was annoyed by it at first but when I actually did it, I thought, Americans are different just to be different but that doesn't mean we always have to do it the hard way... Try it once and you may like using this method even more than measuring cups. All you need is a kitchen scale and if you've ever tried to watch your weight, chances are you already have one. If not, get one. It does make recipes so much more precise and that means, your dishes will come out much better for you too.