Christmas curd stollen

Getting together for Christmas and wondering what to bring as a gift? Prepare a cottage cheese Christmas stollen as a treat for your guests. This is a traditional German pastry for Christmas. It's typically made from yeast dough, but try making stollen with yeast-free cottage cheese dough. You'll definitely enjoy it. The baking is easy to prepare and very delicious. It's made in advance and sealed, then stored in a cool place for 3-4 weeks. Although after a day the baking will infuse a little and you can try it. Unwrap the package, sprinkle the Christmas cottage cheese stollen with a fresh dusting of powdered sugar. Slice it and savor this delightful dessert.

Cooking time: 90 minutes.

Servings: 6.

Calories: 366.

Cuisine: German.

Ingredients

• cottage cheese - 250 g;
• butter - 200 g;
• sugar - 150 g;
• egg - 2 pcs;
• nuts - 100 g;
• dried fruits - 300 g;
• cognac / brandy / rum - 100 g;
• lemon - 1 pc.;
• flour - 500 g;
• baking powder - 18 g;
• salt - a pinch.

You will also need:

• butter - 50 g;
• powdered sugar - 100 g.

Cooking

1. Place the ingredients on the table in advance so that they have time to warm up to room temperature. The cottage cheese should be smooth, not grainy.

2. For stollen, you will need 300 grams of assorted dried fruits. In my case, it's 100 grams of prunes, 100 grams of raisins, and 100 grams of candied fruit.

3. We place the dried fruits in a bowl and pour 100 grams of alcohol over them. Put the bowl with soaked dried fruits in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, bringing it to a boil. Remove it and let the mixture cool, stirring a couple of times during that time.

4. We mix the flour with salt and a leavening agent, and then sift everything through a sieve.

5. We lightly toast the nut kernels and chop them with a knife, but not too finely, to leave noticeable pieces. Add the nuts to the flour and mix.

6. Remove the lemon zest using a grater with fine grating holes. Then, squeeze the lemon juice and mix it with the zest.

7. Mix the softened butter with sugar, then whip this mixture with a mixer until it becomes a gentle fluffy cream.

8. Beat in the eggs (not cold!) and whip.

9. Add the cottage cheese and continue to whip so that the cottage cheese is distributed throughout the mass.

10. Add the lemon mixture and whip the cottage cheese mass until smooth.

11. Now add the flour mixture to the cottage cheese mass and mix.

12. Do not mix with your hands to prevent the butter in the mixture from melting. Do this with a spoon.

13. We transfer the dough from the bowl to a table sprinkled with flour. Flatten the dough, put the soaked dried fruits in the middle of the layer together with the liquid.

14. Quickly mix, pull all the dough into a ball. The dough is slightly sticky, so sprinkle the dough with flour on all sides to make it easy to work with. Divide the dough into 2 equal parts.

15. Flatten the pieces into elongated layers about 3 cm thick. Now on each layer along the dough we retreat about 1/3 and lay a groove with the edge of the palm. We form stollens: put the smaller part on the larger one. Round off the blanks, slightly lift them up. Since the stollen are distributed in breadth during baking, we form them high.

16. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and carefully transfer the blanks to it, maintaining some distance between them.

17. Send the baking sheet to an oven preheated to +160-170 ⁰C for 60-70 minutes. If the top browns too quickly, cover with parchment. We determine the readiness of the baking with a wooden skewer.

18. After readiness, we take it out of the oven, immediately grease each product on all sides with melted butter.

19. Generously sprinkle with powdered sugar until the butter stops showing through the layer of powder. The pastry should be well sealed with powdered sugar. If you plan to store it for a long time, then sprinkle with powdered sugar not only on top, but also on the sides and bottom. Leave it to cool in this form.

20. After that, wrap in parchment, then in foil and a bag. In this form, we withstand for 3-4 weeks in a cool place.

21. After standing, the stollen will become denser and only tastier. But you can try the pastry right away. It’s incredibly delicious!

If you like to give sweet gifts, then cottage cheese Christmas stollen is a great holiday gift!

Cooking video