Marsipan stolle

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Aemilius
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Marsipan stolle

Post by Aemilius »

There appears to be some contrversy about the origin of marsipan. The stuff is well known in China and in the arabic cuisine, but many people would like to believe that it was invented in Europe. As Sravasti Dhammika is preparing a book about the food at the time of Gautama, may be he has some ideas about the place, time and appearance of this sugary stuff (?)
svaha
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca, gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā parasparaṁ vyavaharantu."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
Simon E.
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by Simon E. »

I've no idea. I do know that I can't get enough of the stuff.
One of my earliest memories as a small child was wandering into the bakery where my uncle worked and one of his colleagues shaping a tomato-sized ball of marzipan and handing it to me. He immediately became my favourite person. :smile:
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

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emaho
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by emaho »

Oh dear...

some minutes ago facebook reminded me of this photo of my homemade Marzipan Stollen I baked exactly one year ago today *sigh*
Marzipan Stollen.jpg
Marzipan Stollen.jpg (86.76 KiB) Viewed 3811 times
Unfortunately meanwhile I've decided to cut down on sugar (for a given reason :emb: ), so this year it will only be a miniature one for me, if at all.

PS: @Aemilius, are you talking about Marzipan or Marzipan Stollen? I'm not familiar with the english expression "marsipan stolle" so I assumed it's the same as what we Germans call Marzipan Stollen. (A sweet yeast pastry filled with fruits, nuts, and a very thick core of Marzipan :D )
"I struggled with some demons, They were middle class and tame..." L. Cohen
Simon E.
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by Simon E. »

There is far more to life than longevity. Finishing one's abstemious life pissing oneself in an old folks home does not appeal.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
jkarlins
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by jkarlins »

Wow, that is some good looking bread. Makes me want to try baking it. I'm looking up recipes right now.

Jake
emaho
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by emaho »

jkarlins wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 3:24 pm Wow, that is some good looking bread. Makes me want to try baking it. I'm looking up recipes right now.

Jake
Yep, not only good looking :smile: It's not very difficult to make. I can look up the recipe, if you like. It's just a yeast dough with warm milk and melted butter instead of water, plus a bit of sugar, grated almonds, raisins soaked in Amaretto or Rum, candied pieces of orange and lemons, and of course a huge roll of Marzipan. After cooling down it gets coated with butter and rolled in powdered sugar. There's a myth in Germany that it has to rest for at least 14 days before you can eat it, but that's nonsense. In fact it tastes best when you cut it open and eat the first slice while it's still steaming hot :D
"I struggled with some demons, They were middle class and tame..." L. Cohen
jkarlins
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by jkarlins »

That's always the best way to eat bread. When it's barely rippable, rip into it with bare hands.

Yeah, if you don't mind, I could use a good recipe. I found one online via the LA Times, but it sounds like your recipe would be more authentic.

thanks

Jake
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KathyLauren
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by KathyLauren »

My mother made a different kind of stollen. She didn't use marsipan, and the dough was more like cake than bread. I've never seen one like it anywhere else. Unfortunately, she never gave me the recipe. :(
jkarlins
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by jkarlins »

There is definite magic to the food of mothers who can cook and bake. I can't come close to my mom's desserts or breads, even with recipes.

Maybe if you knew where her family hailed from, it would make it possible to track down an approximate recipe.

Jake
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Mantrik
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by Mantrik »

Here in the UK we have some excellent Stollen full of Marzipan, apparently..........but all I can find is some tasteless fruitcake with a bit of marzipan the thickness of a pencil through the middle.

It should be renamed 'Stolen'! ;)

Best marzipan? Indian sweets!! :)
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Aemilius
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by Aemilius »

emaho wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:52 pm Oh dear...

some minutes ago facebook reminded me of this photo of my homemade Marzipan Stollen I baked exactly one year ago today *sigh*


Unfortunately meanwhile I've decided to cut down on sugar (for a given reason :emb: ), so this year it will only be a miniature one for me, if at all.

PS: @Aemilius, are you talking about Marzipan or Marzipan Stollen? I'm not familiar with the english expression "marsipan stolle" so I assumed it's the same as what we Germans call Marzipan Stollen. (A sweet yeast pastry filled with fruits, nuts, and a very thick core of Marzipan :D )
Yes, I meant Stollen, as an example of marzipan pastry. I have seen this 1kg marzipan thing in the Lidl store, just forgot the correct spelling.
svaha
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca, gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā parasparaṁ vyavaharantu."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
emaho
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by emaho »

jkarlins wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 4:20 pmYeah, if you don't mind, I could use a good recipe. I found one online via the LA Times, but it sounds like your recipe would be more authentic.
Yep, I'm happy to! Unfortunately I'm still having a cold and feeling like sh*t today, so I think it'll have to wait til tomorrow. Not so sure if my recipe is more authentic than others, because there's a really wide spectrum of possibilities.
"I struggled with some demons, They were middle class and tame..." L. Cohen
jkarlins
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by jkarlins »

Cool, no rush! Yeah, any recipe has variations.

Thanks

Jake
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Aemilius wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:05 am
emaho wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:52 pm Oh dear...

some minutes ago facebook reminded me of this photo of my homemade Marzipan Stollen I baked exactly one year ago today *sigh*


Unfortunately meanwhile I've decided to cut down on sugar (for a given reason :emb: ), so this year it will only be a miniature one for me, if at all.

PS: @Aemilius, are you talking about Marzipan or Marzipan Stollen? I'm not familiar with the english expression "marsipan stolle" so I assumed it's the same as what we Germans call Marzipan Stollen. (A sweet yeast pastry filled with fruits, nuts, and a very thick core of Marzipan :D )
Yes, I meant Stollen, as an example of marzipan pastry. I have seen this 1kg marzipan thing in the Lidl store, just forgot the correct spelling.
Just to clarify things ...
"Stollen" is a fruit loaf. (I like them.)
"Marzipan" is the sweet almond paste that is sometimes used as a filling for a fruit loaf. (I like that, too. :smile: )
So a "Marzipan stollen" is a fruit loaf with marzipan filling. (Sounds great but I've never had one. :crying: )

As for where marzipan comes from ... wikipedia has a great page about the stuff - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzipan
It goes back a long way but seems to have spread out from somewhere in somewhere in the Middle East to Europe and India, certainly before 1000 CE and possibly much earlier.

:coffee:
Kim
emaho
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by emaho »

OK, so here it is. I thought I had written down the recipe but obviously I haven't, but that's not a problem. It only means I didn't make so many changes from the recipe that it would have been necessary to write them down. So here's my reconstructed recipe.

(This is the recipe I've used as a template because it is using spelt flour instead of wheat. Of course you can use wheat flour instead just as well)

Ingredients:

FRUIT:
100g sultanas,
100g candied orange peel,
100g candied lemon peel.
6cl Amaretto

(You can also use cranberries or whatever fruit you like. Also, you can adjust the amount of fruit according to your taste, there really are no strikt rules for this. I think everything between 200g and 300g is fine.)


FOR THE DOUGH:

750g spelt flour (refined flour, not whole grain; you can use a mixture, but I would advise against more than 50% whole grain flour as it would make the dough too heavy.)
1 cube of yeast, or the corresponding amount of dry yeast (take the amount you'd normally use for 1kg of flour)
175ml milk
125g sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
200 g butter (if you're vegan use margarine, for everybody else: it has to be butter)
200g almonds, sliced

FOR THE FILLING:

200 g Marzipan (if you can't get Marzipan specifically for baking you can also take a Marzipan loaf and "peel" the chocolate off - or leave the chocolate on if you like to experiment, I haven't tried it yet, but why not. Anyway, don't forget to test the Marzipan properly before you do the baking, after all it's the main ingredient, I suggest you buy at least 400g to make sure there's enough left after testing it!)

AFTER THE BAKING:

100ml butter (for non-vegans: margarine is strictly forbidden here, it has to be butter! vegans: sorry, I think you might have a problem here, because the linked article says that margarine tastes horribly here, maybe better search for an alternative)
75g powdered sugar

Preparation:
Soak the sultanas/raisins/cranberries in the Amaretto over night or at least for a couple of hours.

Making the dough:
Give the flour into a bowl, make a little indentation in the flour, crumble the yeast and give it into the indentation, sprincle a little bit of the sugar over it and add ~50ml of the milk. Let it rest for a couple of minutes.
Give the milk and butter into a pot and warm it over low heat. The butter must melt, but the milk should not become hot. Before you add the milk and butter to the flour, stick in your finger, it mustn’t be uncomfortably hot. If it is, let it cool down a bit. When it’s too hot it will kill the yeast and that will ruin everything! It should have a pleasantly warm temperature, like bathing water.
When the yeast-milk mixture starts get bubbly (see foto), stir it into the flour. Add the salt and the sugar and stir again. Add the lukewarm milk-butter mixture. Stir and knead. You can do this with a machine but you can as well make it by hand. The last step is to knead the fruits and almonds into the dough.

Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or plastic foil and let it rest in a warm place for about an hour. After that it should have risen considerably, even though compared with bread it is a relatively heavy dough and will not rise as much as bread dough. If it hasn’t risen, give it a bit more time, maybe try a warmer place.

Take the dough out of the bowl, put it onto the work surface and give it another short knead. You can divide the dough into two halves and make two Stollen, or you can make one gigantic Stollen.

Then roll the dough out into a more or less rectangular shape (as you can see in the photo). Form one or two rolls from the marzipan, the should be a little bit shorter than the dough. Press one or two impressions into the dough for the Marzipan roll(s). Flap the sides of the dough together so that they cover the Marzipan rolls - I’m a bit at a loss for words here, but the picture in the linked article shows it very well.

Cover the dough and let it rest for another hour.
Pre-heat the oven at 175° Celsius. If you make one giant monster of a Stollen let it bake for about 60 minutes. When you’ve halved the dough and formed two Stollen let them bake for 45-50 minutes.
After the baking, paint it with melted butter and cover it with powdered sugar from all sides. (This is not just for decoration but also for conservation.)

Most people say you have to let a Stollen rest for at least 14 days before eating it. Like I said before, I think this is nonsense. Cut it open and enjoy it while it’s still steaming hot and fluffy inside, it doesn’t get better than that. But careful, the Marzipan core retains the heat longer than the rest, last time I seriously burned my gums.

When it’s cooled down you can wrap it into tin foil and store it in a cool dry place, it will last for weeks or even months - if you don't eat it first.

That's it, I hope I got the english right and this makes sense :smile:
"I struggled with some demons, They were middle class and tame..." L. Cohen
jkarlins
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Re: Marsipan stolle

Post by jkarlins »

Thanks, emaho.

Jake
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