Vegan Stollen is a delicious tea-time treat that is full of festive fruit and marzipan. Get the recipe below.
Festive tea time treats
I love food and drink at Christmas. Everything becomes over the top and jam packed full of flavour. Fruit, nuts and chocolate often feature heavily, as do warming spices, booze and plenty of sugar.
It's rare that Christmas food is health conscious but if you can't enjoy yourself at Christmas when can you?
This year I'm continuing to make some of my favourite festive tea time treats suitable for a plant based diet. Whether you have an egg or dairy intolerance, are vegan for the animals or just looking to reduce the amount of dairy you eat, I've got you covered.
Today I'm sharing my recipe for a classic Vegan Stollen.
What is stollen?
Stollen is a cake-like bread made with yeast, water and flour, spices, mixed peel, dried fruit and nuts all added to the dough. It's an enriched dough too meaning it has butter and egg added to create a really rich bread.
Like many delicious Christmas treats, stollen originates in Germany where it is often enjoyed with a hot drink. Cardamom and nutmeg are the traditional spices but sometimes cinnamon and ginger are added too.
My favourite variation is one which includes a marzipan centre. When the dough is shaped a sausage of marzipan is laid down the middle. The result is a soft, almond centre encased in the cake like bread. Of course I've included this in my vegan version.
Last but not least there's some debate about whether or not the stollen should be rolled in sugar or glazed. Traditionally the stollen would be covered with melted butter and then rolled in sugar once it came out of the oven. This isn't very vegan friendly (more on that below) so I go for a sugar syrup glaze instead. Sometimes I will dust it with icing sugar too.
How do you make stollen vegan?
I love stollen and used to always come back from the Christmas markets with at least one loaf.
But, because stollen is made using an enriched dough it usually includes milk, egg and butter. As a result, the classic stollen recipe isn't suitable for people following a plant based diet.
But, the good news is that my recipe still gives you a rich, cake like bread without using egg or dairy.
For the cow's milk we simply use soy milk. I prefer soy milk as it's the most similar to cow's milk in terms of fat and protein content. If you don't have soy milk then use any plant milk of your choosing.
You can easily do without the egg in this recipe. The milk is plenty to bind the dough together.
Next we need to replace the butter. I find that vegan spreads work perfectly to make a light, buttery, cakey stollen.
Last but not least is the glaze. Rather than creating a crust using butter and sugar, I make a simple syrup of water, sugar and brandy and brush this over the vegan stollen while it's still warm. This helps to preserve the loaf but also adds extra flavour! Win - win.
The recipe
Vegan Stollen
Ingredients
For the stollen dough
- 250 g strong white bread flour
- 30 g caster sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 7 g fast action dried yeast
- 50 g vegan butter
- 135 g soy milk warm
- 1 lemon zest only
- 50 g whole almonds
- 75 g dried fruit e.g. raisins and currants
- 50 g mixed peel
- 2 g ground cardamom
- 2 g nutmeg
- 1 g cinnamon
- 200 g marzipan
For the glaze
- 100 g caster sugar
- 80 g water
- 20 g brandy
Instructions
- Sift the flour into a bowl along with the yeast, caster sugar and salt. Whisk to ensure they are evenly distributed.
- Next add the butter and, using a fork, break it down into small pieces dispersed in the flour mixture.
- Make a well in the centre of the your ingredients and add the milk before bringing it all together to form a rough, shaggy dough.
- Tip the dough out onto your work surface (you don't need any extra flour just scrape everything out of your bowl).
- Knead the dough for 5 minutes or until it becomes smooth and elastic.
- Stretch the dough out into a rough rectangle and add the zest, almonds, raisins, mixed peel and ground spices on top of the dough. Fold the dough over the fruit, nuts and spices so they are trapped inside.
- Carefully knead the dough until the fruits, nuts and spices are evenly distributed. don't worry if they try to escape just scoop them back into the dough.
- Place the dough back in the bowl and leave it to prove at room temperature for 1-2 hours or until it has risen and is springy to the touch.
- While the dough is proofing, pre-heat your oven to 170 C/ 340 F / gas mark 4.
- Once the dough has risen, gently press it out into a rectangle roughly the size of an A5 piece of paper (20 x 24cm)
- Roll the marzipan into a sausage shape just a little bit shorter than the length of your dough and lay it in the centre. Fold over the dough to encase the marzipan down the centre.
- Press down the edges to completely encase the marzipan (don't forget the ends of the dough!)
- Place the loaf on to a baking tray and bake in the centre of your oven for 40 minutes.
- While the stollen is baking, add the sugar, water and brandy to a saucepan to make a glaze.
- Slowly heat the syrup until the sugar has melted. Turn up the heat and let it simmer for 2 - 3 minutes before taking off of the heat.
- Once the stollen is cooked, remove it from the oven and brush it with the syrup.
- Leave the stollen to cool completely before serving.
Nutrition
Vegan Stollen Storage Instructions
My Vegan Stollen will keep really well in an air tight tin for 2 to 3 weeks.
More festive tea time treats
If you like Stollen, perhaps you'll like some of these other vegan recipes.
The Christmas Recipe Archive
For the full range of Christmas recipes on the blog, check out the Christmas recipe archive.
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