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Dessert

Christmas Stollen

A sweet fruit bread with almonds, candied fruit, and lemon rind, brushed with butter and frosted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Christmas Stollen

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Prepare Sweet Roll dough according to the instructions on page 346.

  2. After the dough has risen, turn it onto a mixing board and pat or roll it out flat.

  3. Cover the dough with slivered almonds, candied fruit, and grated lemon rind.

  4. Fold and knead the fruit into the dough, then flatten it into an oblong shape.

  5. Brush the surface with melted butter and fold the dough lengthwise, pressing the edges together.

Bake and finish

  1. Place the dough on a greased baking sheet and let it rise until doubled in size.

  2. Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 35 minutes.

  3. Frost with Confectioners’ Frosting and decorate with additional almonds and candied fruit.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet roll dough
Provides the rich, yeasted base that rises and holds the fruit and nuts.
Slivered almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the bread's interior and decoration.
Candied fruit
Adds chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the loaf.
Melted butter
Adds fat that promotes tenderness and gives the surface a golden browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled before baking. Yeast needs time to produce gas and expand the dough structure; under-proofed stollen bakes dense, while the fold and seal keep the fruit inside as it rises.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, butter):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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