Christstollen (German Christmas Cake)

This is the traditional german christmas cake called "Stollen". It's a yeasted cake, that's very high in fat and it's kind of dry because the cake should last very long. It's always full of raisins and candied citrus peel and sometimes it has also a core made of marzipan. After baking the cake gets brushed with a lot of butter (in my case magarine) and coated with a generous layer of confetioners sugar. When this spcial threatment is finished the stollen has to rest at a cool place. Some recipe call for 2-3 weeks of resting time or even more and the recipe I veganized called for 5- 7 days, which I this was enough time. Stollen is a good example for the fact that most of the cakes and cookies, that are served during christmastime in germany are based on recipes from middle ages, because Stollen was first mentioned in 1329. So this is a cake, that people bake for christmas for more than 600 years now. They also they that the cake looks like a baby Jesus wrapped into a white towel because of the shape of the cake and the white coating.
I found a recipe on the internet which was easy to veganize because it uses no eggs. This recipe and I am now going to translate it. The only changes I made were to sub magarine for butter and candied orange peel for the succade and I made the preparation a bit easier because the autor calls for some steps that really didn't make sence for me.

Vegan Christstollen

Ingredients:

750 g of wheat flour

375 g of magarine, at room temperature plus some extra magarine for brushing after baking (aprox 3/4 cup)

140 g of white sugar

42 g of bakers yeast or the amount of instant yeast you'll neet to replace that

125 ml of warm soy milk or any other non-dairy milk

375 g of raisins marinated in rum overnight

125 g of chopped almonds ( I bought a package of 100 g and it was ok)

125 g of candied orange peel

1 tsp of nutmeg

1 tbs of cinnamon

1 tsp of salt

200 g of confectioners suagr for coating

1. Place the flour into a large bowl and make a howl in the middle. Crumble the yeast into the howl and add a little bit of the warm soy milk. Mix the yeast and milk with a bit of the flour surrounding it and cover it with a fine layer of flour. Leave at room temperature for about one hour.

2. Add the remaining soy milk, the sugar, the magarine, the salt and the two other spies and mix and knead it until you've got a nice dough, that doesn't stick to the bowl anymore.

3. Add the other stuff except of the magarine and confetioners sugar and mix well.

4. Try to flatten the dough a bit and shape it into a elliptic shape. Folt over the sides. It should now look like this.

5. Wrap the loaf into aluminium foil and put it into the fridge overnight for some extra resting time.

6. At the next day you put the foil away bake it for ten minutes at 220°C and then you lower the heat to 180°C and bake for 45 more minutes. Be carefull not getting it to dark. If the stollen looks very dark during the baking proces should should maybe lower the heat a bit or even cover the loaf with some alumium foil. It's okay when it gets a bit dark but we don't want to burn it.

7. After baking, brush the warm stollen with the melted magarine and cover it completly in confetioners sugar. Wrapp it in aluminium foil and let it mature for 4- 7 days at a cool and dry place. This place isn't your kitchen cupboard even if you son't heat your kitchen. This place might be a cave or something like that. An odorless fridge might be okay as well.

8. When the maturation is done the stollen is ready to be eaten and you can keep it for couple of weeks if you wrap it well after you took a slice. Some people like to spread a thick layer of magarine (traditional butter) on their slice of stollen but well, does anyone need some extra calories at christmas season?

St. Martin, Weckmänner and Martinsgans (Sweetbreadguys and my very own vegan goose)

This post is dedicated to one of my alltime favourit german celebrations: "St. Martin".
First I have to say, that St. Martin is a catholic holiday and it seems to be a very german holiday, which is very popular were I live.
The story of Martin of Tours goes back to the fourth centuary. He first was a roman soldier and then changed his life and became a bishop but this is not the important part of the story.
The most important thing is, that he shared food with poor people and cut his coat into two halfes to share it with a homeless man.
At St.Martin the kinds walk trough the streets with selfmade laterns and sing special songs.
When the singing is over, they walk from house to house sing other songs and get sweets, fruits, nuts and baked goods like the kids do on halloween in the USA.
One of these baked goods is called "Weckmann" or "Martinsmann", which is a sweet and yeasted dough shaped like a man.
I wanted to bake a vegan version for my son that turned out a bit dry but still was delicious because of the icing and the roasted almonds on top.
At sunday a wanted to prepare the traditional lunch for the next sunday after St. Martin, wich is a goose with some festive side dishes.
My attmep on a fake goose was a giant yuba fake chicken style roast stuffed with homemade seitan, dried plums saked in wihte wine, a sliced apple and some pieces of raosted chestnuts. As side dishes I made selfamde potato dumplings for the very first time in my life and some blanched and fried brussel sprouts.
The dumplings and brussel sprouts turned out nice but the yuba-roast was a fail because I used a differnt kind of yuba which was soft without soaking but came out hard and kind of inedieable.
The stuffing was still nice. It's just equal amounts of pealed and sliced apples, dried plums soaked in wihte wine and roasted chestnuts. Maybe you want to try this istead of a breadstuffing for your christmas dinner.
Here's the recipe for the "Weckmänner".

Weckmänner

(makes two monster ones or 4 normal guys)

Ingredients:

500 g of wheat flour

250 ml of soy milk or any non diary milk plus some soymilk for brushing before baking

125 g of magarine

150 g of sugar

1 cube of fresh yeast

a pinch of salt

a few raisins for the eyes

1 cup of confectioners sugar

1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice or water

aprox. one cup of thinly sliced roasted almonds.

1. Mix flour, sugar, magarine, salt, soymilk and yeast and knead until you've good a nice dough.

2. Let it sit for about 1 -2 hours.

3. Shape it like little humans and stick some raisins into the face for the eyes and brush with a little soymilk.

4. Bake at 180° C for about half an hour.

5. Let it cool. Make an icing by combining th confetioners sugar and lemon juice or water and cover the cooled guys. Sprinkel with the roaste almonds.

6. Wait until the icing is solid and enjoy.


Homemade Potato Dumplings

Ingredients:

8 big and starchy potatoes

some salt

a pinch of nutmeg

3/4 of potato flour or potato starch

2 tablespoons of chickpea flour

1. Cook half of the potatoes until they are done ( that's 30 minutes counted form the point where you put the heat on, 20 minutes from the point when the water is boiling.

2. Peal the cooked and the remaining ram potatoes and grate them vary finely.

3. Mix in the flours, some salt and the nutmeg and mix well.

4. Form about 8 -10 fist siced dumplings.

5. Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer the dumplings for about 25 minutes. (The water should never be boiling because the dumplings whould fall apart.)

6. Strain the dumplings and you're done.