Whatever you want to call it, Stollen pretty much takes up two days of my life every year. It used to be just one day, but I’d end up in the kitchen at 10:30 at night, waiting for the last batch to bake, and so I’ve split it into two days.

The Stollen Story (as related to my family)

Once upon a time, my Grandmother baked Christmas Stollen, for which she was famous among all her friends and family. Every year, she’d trudge up and down the steps from the furnace room where she let the dough rise to the kitchen, and back again, making a loaf for everyone. My father absolutely adored it.

  Then, in 1985, my Grandmother died, having been unable to meet her stollen tradition for her last year or so. 1985 was also the year I started college, and was short on money for gifts, so I decided to surprise my dad with some homemade stollen. (Entenmann’s is just not the same.)

I called my aunt, who had gotten all of my grandmother’s cookbooks and recipes, and while there wasn’t an actual recipe card, she photocopied the page out of one of Grandma’s cookbooks, figuring that was as close as we were going to get.

So, one weekend in December, I snuck down to my friend Dawn’s house and the two of us took over her kitchen for the day. But, the first problem? The ratios in the recipe made no sense. It called for a pound of melted butter, a quart of milk, and 10 eggs–about 7 cups of liquid–and then said “add 6 cups of flour, or enough to make a dough.” Let me just say that a normal bread recipe uses about 2 cups of liquid to 6 cups of flour. I should have known right then how challenging Stollen was going to be. I don’t remember how much flour we actually used, but it was a lot. And then we divided the whole thing into three loaves as directed.

Loaves? Well, I suppose you could call them that–but each one completely filled a cookie sheet. They were huge! I left one with her family as a thank you, planned on giving one to my also Stollen-deprived uncle, but kept the best for my Dad. I wrapped it up, put it under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, to our dog’s delight–she insisted Dad open it right away. He didn’t cry, or anything like that, but he was definitely touched, and I got a huge hug. I think it was the best gift he got that year.

  The following year, Dawn and I moved operations to my kitchen, but after that, since we were both in different schools in different states, it was just up to me. But it never got easier.

See, the first mistake was making it that second year. Or maybe the mistake was making it the first year after I graduated from college and had a job. I’m not exactly sure when it became my tradition, but it’s obviously here to stay. Judging by the watering mouths and eager expressions on the faces of Dad, my uncle, aunt, cousin . . . I can’t stop now.

Because–here’s the thing. Or rather, a couple things. One, nobody in this house likes it but Dad. For the last few years, I’ve been making 6 loaves (two batches), and giving two to my uncle and leaving four for Dad. I’m pretty much not allowed to drop this to, say, one batch. So every step has to be done twice–get one batch mixed and kneaded and set to rise, then start all over again. My KitchenAid hates Stollen Day almost as much as I do.

And then there’s the Stollen itself. It’s a rich, heavy, eggy dough, filled with lots (and lots more, if Dad has anything to say about it) of candied and dried fruits. Mostly, in this house, the candied ones. (My father is one of the few people I know who loves them and also gets excited about fruitcake.) And when I say it’s heavy, I mean heavy. I was going to weigh one of the bowls this morning to give you hard numbers, but my scale is only good for up to 10 lbs, and trust me, one batch of Stollen in a ceramic bowl is definitely heavier than that. (2 cups milk, 2 sticks butter, 5 eggs, half a box of raisins, three large containers of candied fruit, about 8-10 cups of flour, plus odds and ends like salt and yeast. You do the math.) So, maneuvering the stuff around at all is hard work.

But since it’s so dense and so rich, it takes a long time to bake. Loooong time. I had Stollen in the oven today from about 11:00 until 4:00, and that last half hour was just for the two mini stollens I make each year. The “main” batches took between two and two-and-a-half hours each. That’s a long time. (Normal breads? Half hour-45 minutes. Maybe up to an hour.) Part of this is because I do keep the oven fairly low–about 325–because . . . and this is the part that drives me crazy . . . Stollen is so dense and rich that the inside takes forever to bake. The outside will be perfect while the middle is raw, and then the longer it sits in the oven, the darker and darker the outside gets.

So, after hours of mixing, kneading, rising, waiting, and lugging this stuff back and forth around the kitchen. (Heavy, remember?) It ultimately comes down to me standing in front of the oven, wringing my hands while I watch it burn and there’s nothing I can do. Over the years, there have been temper flare-ups. Tears. Anger. Frustration. It quickly became apparent that it was better for all concerned for me to be the only person anywhere near the kitchen on Stollen Day, just to avoid any possible friction. Like throwing myself at my father, beating his chest, and screaming “It’s all your fault!” (No, I’ve never actually done this, though he’s gotten a few dirty looks.) Or snapping at my mother for trying to make helpful suggestions. (Yes, this has happened, unfortunately). Not exactly conducive to the Christmas spirit.

  So, part of the Stollen Day tradition has become–Mom and Dad leave. Not just for dinner. Not just to the mall for the afternoon. But leave. Martha’s Vineyard. Florida. Any other state. Just not in this house. (There was the year they tried to go to MV and got all the way to the ferry, but there were huge, storm-driven waves and the ferries were cancelled and they had to come home. That was interesting.) I don’t actually lose my temper very often, but the odds skyrocket on Stollen Day.

Then, there was also the year that my KitchenAid almost died–it was making the most horrendous noises as it struggled through that second batch. Or, the year the heating element in the oven caught on fire and died out. (Luckily, that was after the second batch came out, and only affected those mini loaves.) It’s just not pretty around here.

I’ve tried lots of different things–baking the loaves in loaf pans rather than the traditional oval loaves, covering them in foil, turning the temperature down, using less butter and fewer eggs so the dough won’t be as dense (nobody noticed), using less fruit (which was declared unacceptable) . . . sometimes I think I could just hand Dad the tub of fruit and a spoon and he’d be happy. It’s gotten better. Twenty years of experience DO make a difference. But it’s still long, tiring, exhausting, and really–safer for all concerned for everyone to be out of the house.

  Except my helper, of course. He’s really very soothing.

The sad part this year, though, is that my uncle is no longer around to share the bounty. We’re still sending two loaves down to the farm for my aunt and cousin, though. It wouldn’t be right not to, but this year, Uncle Richard is on my mind almost as much as my Dad. And Grandma, of course. I think she’s pleased that somebody’s been taking care of her boys’ favorite Christmas treat all these years. (Though my guess is that, if she’s hanging around the kitchen on Stollen Day, she’s shaking her head, saying “That’s not the way I did it.”)

You know, I really DO love my Dad. Would I go through all of this if I didn’t? Because, really, personally? I can’t stand the stuff.

And, the best part? I’m done for this year!

• Tags: Baking, Family • Permalink:Lost, Stollen, Whatever //