Stollen – a traditional German cake or bread first eaten at Christmastime in the Saxon Royal Court in the 15th century according to Wikipedia.  Originally it was more like pastry than bread or cake, pretty tasteless and bland as bakers weren’t allowed to use eggs, butter or sugar in their products during Advent.  Well over the years it’s turned into a sweet, sticky, marzipan-y lump of deliciousness and I for one am quite glad about it.

Having said that, the bakers in this house do not use eggs or butter.  Stollen as it is now is full of non-vegan stuff so I had to put my thinking cap on.  Butter and milk are easy to replace with their soy equivalents, but the egg?  I wasn’t sure what would work.  Banana was out – I didn’t want the stollen being overtaken by banana flavour – and I thought silken tofu would make the mixture a bit too wet.  So I took a risk and went with the flax egg.  Oh flax egg, you never let me down!

Every family makes their own traditions at Christmas and Himself and I have made it a tradition to spend an entire Saturday afternoon each year making stollen.  If you make it be prepared for it to take an afternoon.  Have DVDs, good books or a game of Killer Bunnies to hand for while you are waiting for it to rise.  Relish in the time, enjoy it!

You may remember how Himself’s clammy hands make for rather marvellous pastry.  Well they make for fantastic bread kneading skills too, much better than mine so I will leave you in his capable (if clammy) hands.

Warning: You may be tempted to do the kneading part of the recipe on the dough setting of a bread maker.  Don’t.  I don’t know why it doesn’t work, but it just doesn’t.  Give stollen the time and energy it deserves!

Over to Himself.

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I love stollen. Not only does it taste great, it’s also really fun to prepare. There’s a surprisingly large amount of ingredients that go into this but it’s actually a simple recipe. It’s one of those recipes that takes time, patience and a bit of love. When you’re kneading the dough for the lengthy 10 minutes, try not to think about all the other things you could be doing, just stay present and in the moment and think about how amazing this is going to taste when you’re done and what a reward for your efforts it will be.

Ingredients
75g/3oz raisins
75g/3oz sultanas
25g/1oz mixed peel
50g/2oz glace cherries (chopped)
50g/2oz ground almonds
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
0.25 teaspoon nutmeg
0.5 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
375g/15oz plain flour
1 sachet dried yeast
50g/2oz sugar
1 flax egg
65g/2.5oz vegan margarine, melted
150ml/5 floz warm soy or rice milk
200g/8oz marzipan

(A note on Marzipan – we used Co-op prepackaged white marzipan.  This says “suitable for vegans” on the outside of the pack.  Check packs before you buy as some marzipan has eggs in.  Pa Yogini makes his own marzipan but it has an egg in.  We are working on a vegan version and hope to bring it to you soon!)

Take the cherries and chop them into quarters

Take a large bowl and mix in the mixed fruit, cherries, almonds, lemon zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla extract using a wooden spoon. Cover with cling film and leave to stand while you prepare the dough.

Grab another bowl and pour in the flour, yeast, sugar, flax egg, melted butter and milk. Mix it together with a round edged knife so it starts to form the basis of a dough. Then get your hands in there and finish it off. Dough is best when brutally treated so squish it, roll it, ball it, punch it and beat it with the rolling pin. You need to get all the air out and bond everything together so it doesn’t just fall apart when it rises. You should spend about 10 minutes kneading the dough to give you a really lovely texture once cooked.

If you do find that you drop it in the sink full of water because you were arsing around, just grab some flour and rub it in until it dries up. When you’re done, you should have a nice and stretchy elastic dough that you can pull apart quite a bit without it tearing.  (Dear God in Heaven…. Just as well we’re not selling this stuff, we’d be shut down by Health & Safety – R)

Lightly oil the bowl and drop the dough in, cover  with cling film and leave to rise for about 75 minutes in a warm place. Under a table lamp is usually good. It should rise to about 2.5 times the size.

Once the dough has risen, take it out and place it on a lightly floured surface. Take the fruit in handfuls and knead in to the dough.

You’ll probably find the dough can only take so much fruit before it starts rejecting it. This is quite a messy process so don’t worry if you think it’s going wrong!

When you can squish in no more fruit, cover it with towel and leave to rise for another 20-25 minutes.

Traditionally stollen comes in loaf form. It’s essentially a bread rather than a cake so it makes sense. However, the last couple of years has seen an increase in stollen slices, stollen bites etc being sold in the supermarket, so this year we decided to do something different and make stollen muffins.

Roll the fruit dough into a fairly large tube then cut it into 12 even pieces. Take each piece and roll it in your hands. It should be quite sticky now. Make a thumbprint in the middle, add a ball of marzipan (about 2cm round) to the imprint and roll the dough around it.

Repeat for each ball and when done, pop them in some muffin cases in a tray and cover with cling film.

Turn the oven onto 190*C/375*F/gas mark 5 to preheat.

Leave the dough balls to rise again for another 20 minutes under the lamp then pop them in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

If you make them early, you can freeze them for a couple of weeks and take them out to defrost on Christmas Eve. They make a wonderful Christmas Day breakfast accompaniment.

Last Sunday here in the UK, where there is no official holiday or giving of thanks on Thursday, we celebrated Stir Up Sunday. This is traditionally the Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent and the day when we make the Christmas Puddings and Christmas cakes.

Now I’m not making a Christmas Pudding this year.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas Pudding.  But I also love Christmas Cake and Mince Pies and really after a huge Christmas Dinner (of Lentil Loaf and Himself’s Veggies), I want something lighter than a big ol’ boiled suet pudding – and we’ll come to that in a few weeks.

So I used Stir Up Sunday to make the cake and the mincemeat filling for Mince Pies (which needs to be made now in preparation for the Mince Pie baking in Christmas week).

But first the cake!  And here is a test to check you’ve all been paying attention.  Remember the cake I made in celebration of Phil and Tom’s wedding?  Of course you do.  Well that is the recipe you are going to follow for your vegan Christmas Cake.  I advise using the following mix of dried fruit:-

4oz/100g sultanas
4oz/100g currants
2oz/50g glace cherries (chopped)
2oz/50g mixed peel

Otherwise follow that recipe to the letter. As it’s a Christmas cake don’t forget to get everyone in on the action when it comes to stirring the batter and making a Christmas wish!

Even furry family members (wishing, no doubt, for fish heads for Christmas dinner).

While the cake is baking you can make your mincemeat.  To make 6 small jars (they make lovely Christmas presents) you will need:-

2 large Bramley apples (cored and chopped)
5oz/150g shredded suet (**make sure it’s the vegetarian one** see picture above!)
12oz/350g raisins
8oz/225g mixed peel
8oz/225g sultanas
8oz/225g currants
2oz/50g glace cherries, chopped
12oz/350g dark muscavado sugar
Juice and rind of 2 oranges
2 teaspoons ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
7 tablespoons brandy (don’t use the good stuff, that’s for drinking!!!)

Put all the dried fruit, suet and spices in a large pan.

Then you will need to grate the peel and juice your oranges,

and add that along with the cherries and apples to your pan.

Give everything a really good stir and then pour the brandy over the top.  Stir again and cover the pan, leaving it to marinate overnight.

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So your cake has baked and cooled.  Your mincemeat has marinated.  What now?

First you need to sterilise six small jam jars (how to do that is here) and divide your mincemeat between them.

Now store these in a cool dark place until the week before Christmas, when you can start giving them out to people and making mince pies (using Himself’s pastry recipe if you like!).

As for the cake, well that needs to be stored in an airtight tin in a cool dark place as well, but first you have one very important step left….. adding the brandy.

Put your cake in its tin and punch a series of tiny holes in the top using a cocktail stick (I used a corn on the cob holder but the effect is much the same).

Pour a dessertspoonful of brandy over the top of the cake and let it sink in.

You will need to repeat the brandy process 2-3 more times between now and Christmas, making sure the cake soaks up the brandy but stays dry.  Marzipan and icing come the week before Christmas.

Did you participate in Stir Up Sunday?

Soup: THE winter wonderfood yes? All your daily vegetable requirement in one bowl not to mention the 1001 different flavours you can play around with there too!

At Christmas it’s always a good idea to have a pot of soup on a backburner somewhere.  You never know who might pop round and want feeding and it always tastes super delicious after coming in from a brisk family walk in the freezing cold.  (This is of course a work of fiction, if your family is anything like mine it will take so long for everybody to assemble in the hall with a full quota of socks, hats, shoes and gloves and then to get everyone out of the door without somebody needing to check their email one more time or a phone ringing, it has started to go dark and everybody will give up and sit down again.)

This spicy parsnip soup is also good as a starter for the main Christmas meal. This recipe serves 4 as a lunch and maybe 6 as a starter.

You will need:-

1 onion
3 large parsnips
2 carrots
vegetable oil
pinch of salt
pinch of black pepper
1 – 2 teaspoons of curry powder (depending on taste)
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1.5 pints of vegetable stock – this can be either from a stock cube or homemade – click here for homemade stock recipe.

Dice your onion and sautee in some vegetable oil over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until it starts to soften.

Add peeled and chopped carrots and parsnips and then pour the stock over the top and bring to the boil.

Once boiling add salt, pepper, cumin, coriander and curry powder.

Turn the heat down to low, cover and allow to simmer for about 50 minutes – the vegetables should be very soft by then.

Now you will need to blend your soup.  Some people put the whole thing through a fancy food processor and this does make it really smooth, but I’m not much of a kitchen gadget person.  I have sharp knives, a variety of baking trays and saucepans, several wooden spoons and this….

This little baby also has a whisk and blender attachment but this one’s my favourite.  It makes smoothies and soups, my favourite comfort foods.  It also blends the soup to a point that isn’t quite smooth which I think gives it a homemade and chunky feel.  Before the advent of kitchen gadgets I believe a potato masher worked just as well.  To each their own. Blend it in your own way to your own taste.

The best thing about this soup is it freezes well so you can make a batch of it and defrost when you need it.  If it gets a bit thick on defrosting just add a little more water.