stollen

A wrapped stollen can be given as a gift. Already before World War II the Dresden Christmas cake was packed and sealed in tin boxes and exported over the Atlantic Ocean to North and South America as a Christmas gift for friends and relatives bringing back memories of their Saxon homeland. ^[1]

A Stollen is a loaf shaped fruitcake, powdered with icing sugar on the outside. The cake is usually made with chopped candied fruit and/or dried fruit, nuts and spices. Stollen is a traditional German cake, usually eaten during the Christmas season, when called Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen. A similar cake from the Dutch cuisine is called a Kerststol in Dutch while in Italian cuisine the Panettone also shows a likeness.

The cake

A Christmas Stollen

Stollen is a bread-like fruitcake made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Candied orange peel and candied citrus peel (Zitronat),^[2] raisins and almonds and different spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs,^[3] vanilla,^[4] other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan may also be added to the Stollen dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished cake is sprinkled with icing sugar. The traditional weight of a Stollen is around 4.4 pounds (2 kg), but smaller sizes are now available.

The Dresden Stollen (originally Striezel), a moist, heavy bread filled with fruit, was first mentioned in an official document in 1474,^[5] and the most famous Stolen is still the Dresdner Stollen,^[6] sold, among other places, at the local Christmas market, Striezelmarkt . Dresden Stollen is produced in the city of Dresden and distinguished by a special seal depicting King Augustus II the Strong. This "official" Stollen is produced by only 150 Dresden bakers.

History

The old name Striezel came from strüzel or stroczel, "awaken" (Old Prussian: troskeilis), which came to mean early baked "loaf of bread". The shape of the cake was originally meant to represent the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes.^[7] However, the Stollen reminded Erzgebirge miners of the entrance to a mine tunnel, which is the literal meaning of Stollen, and they renamed it.^{[citation needed]}

The early Stollen was a different pastry, the ingredients were very different, flour, oats and water.^[8]

As a Christmas pastry, Stollen was baked for the first time at the Saxon Royal Court in 1427^[9] made with flour, yeast, oil and water.

The Advent season was a time of fasting, and bakers were not allowed to use butter, only oil, and the cake was tasteless and hard.^[5]

In the 15th century, in Medieval Saxony (northern Germany, mid-eastern Germany), the Prince Elector Ernst (1441 - 1486) and his brother Duke Albrecht (1443 –1500) decided to remedy this by writing to the Pope in Rome. The Saxon bakers needed to use butter, as oil In Saxony was expensive and hard to come by, and had to be made from turnips, which was unhealthy.

Pope Nicholas V (1397 – 1455), in 1450 denied the first appeal. Five popes died until finally, Pope Innocent VIII, (1432 – 1492) ^[9] in 1490 sent a letter to the Prince, known as the "Butter-Letter" which granted the use of butter (without having to pay a fine) - but only for the Prince-Elector and his family and household.

Others were also permitted to use butter, but with the condition of having to pay annually 1/20th of a gold Gulden to support the building of the Freiberg Cathedral. The ban on butter was removed when Saxony became Protestant.

Over the centuries the cake changed from being a simple, fairly tasteless "bread" to a sweeter cake with richer ingredients such as marzipan, although the traditional Stollen is not as sweet, light and airy as the copies made around the world.

The Dresden Stollen festival

Augustus II the Strong, by Louis de Silvestre

Every year a Stollenfest takes place in Dresden. This historical tradition ended only 1918 with the fall of the monarchy^[9], and started again in 1994, but the idea comes from Dresden’s history.

Dresden’s Christmas market was mentioned in the chronicles for the first time in 1474^[9].

The tradition of baking Christmas Stollen in Dresden is very old. Christmas Stollen in Dresden was already baked in the 15th century.

In 1560 the bakers of Dresden offered the rulers of Saxony Christmas Stollen weighing 36 pounds each as gift, and the custom continued.^[9]

Augustus II the Strong (1670 –1733) was the Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania. The King loved pomp, luxury, splendour and feasts. In 1730 he impressed his subjects, ordering the Bakers’ Guild of Dresden to make a giant 1.7-tonne Stollen, big enough for everyone to have a portion to eat. There were around 24,000 guests who were taking part in the festivities on the occasion of the legendary amusement festivity known as Zeithainer Lustlager.^[9] For this special occasion, the court architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann (1662-1737), built a particularly oversize Stollen oven^[9]. An oversized Stolen Knife also had been designed solely for this occasion.^[10]

Today the festival takes place on the Saturday before the second Sunday in Advent, and the cake weighs between three and four tonnes. A carriage takes the cake in a parade through the streets of Dresden to the Christmas market, where it is ceremoniously cut into pieces and distributed among the crowd, for a small sum which goes to charity. A special knife, The Grand Dresden Stollen Knife, a silver-plated knife, 1.60 meters long weighing 12 kilos, which is a copy of the lost baroque original knife from 1730, is used to festively cut the oversize Stollen at the Dresden Christmas fair^[10].

The largest Stollen was baked in 2000: it weighed 4.2 tonnes and is in the Guinness Book of World Records, as The Dresden Giant Stollen.^[11]

Gallery

Christmas Stollen with raisins

A Stollen, close up detail

How to make Stollen

A Dutch Stol

See also

• Kerststol
• Christmas worldwide
• Striezelmarkt
• Christkindlmarkt
• Cuisine of Germany
• Pan de pascua

External links

• Dresden Stollen Festival
• Dresden Stollen history, in English from the Germany Embassy in Canada
• Stollen history, in German

Recipes

• A German Stollen recipe, in German and English
• German Stollen recipe, in German
• Preparation Tips

References