One of the last things I went through of my Mom’s was her recipe book. Recipes are like little treasures to me so you can imagine how much my Mom’s recipes mean to me. In that moment I was on the hunt for a recipe I knew existed, but that no one has made for many years… German Christmas Stollen.

It didn’t take me long before I found it folded up and delicately tucked into a recipe card pocket labelled “desserts”. It was a little bit daunting to make this stollen as I felt like I was going into it blind since I hadn’t even seen my Mom or Oma bake it before. Fortunately I had my friend with Austrian background (we think so much alike it’s a little weird) helping me so we analyzed, tinkered and made this stollen twice just to get it right.

If you’ve made or had German Christmas Stollen before you may notice that this stollen doesn’t have that perfect, traditional shape. Want to know why? Because it’s jam packed with tasty goodies like almonds, currants, raisins and candied citrus peel! 😀 The stollen you can buy that have that perfect shape usually have a far higher dough to goodies ratio which I personally think is blah.

One more thing… if you have a psychotic oven like mine you must, must, must put another pan on the rack below for the entire time the stollen is baking. Otherwise all those goodies will make the bottom just a smidge too dark (like the bottom of mine in the photo below… hey, no ones perfect. 😉 )

Happy baking and Merry Christmas!

Recipe and photos updated January 12, 2025: After making yeast dough stollen the past few Christmases I circled back around to this recipe as I enjoy the simplicity of it, however, I have made numerous changes to the recipe including reducing the amount of “goodies” as I refer to them above and baking at a much lower temperature which eliminates the need for another pan on the rack below to keep the bottom from getting too dark. To me this stollen recipe is now as close as I can get it to tasting like it’s yeast dough cousin but with the delightful ease of simply mixing everything together and baking it right away.

If you liked this recipe you are going to love these ones!

German Fruit and Nut Spelt Bread
Chocolate Hazelnut Swirl Spelt Bread
Bavarian Walnut Spelt Stollen

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German Christmas Quark Stollen with Spelt Flour

Course Dessert

Cuisine German

Keyword Cakes, Stollen

Servings 1 stollen

Author Sophie

Ingredients

• 125 grams quark or cottage cheese
• 2 tbsp golden rum
• 38 grams currants
• 75 grams golden raisins or dark raisins
• 30 grams candied lemon peel or candied citrus peel mix
• 250 grams organic, all-purpose spelt flour (also called white spelt flour) or 250g all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch ground cardamom
• pinch ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 75 grams granulated sugar
• 88 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp lemon zest from approximately 1 large lemon
• 30 grams almonds coarsely ground

Topping

• 25 grams unsalted butter melted
• 1/4 cup icing sugar for decoration

Instructions

1. Place the quark or cottage cheese in a small sieve over a bowl to drain. Set aside. Mix the rum, currants, raisins and candied peel in a small bowl. Stir to combine and set aside to soak.

2. Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, nutmeg, salt and sugar until evenly combined. If you are using cottage cheese, pour out any liquid that has drained into the bowl, then press the cheese through the sieve using a spoon or spatula. Cut the butter into small pieces, then add it along with the egg, vanilla extract, lemon zest, almonds, dried fruit including any rum in the bottom of the bowl and the drained quark or cottage cheese to the dry ingredients. Mix everything together with your hands until evenly incorporated into a sticky dough.

4. Scrape the dough together with a flexible dough scraper or a spatula, then empty it onto the prepared baking sheet. Flatten it and form it into a rectangle about 12" long and 6" side. Fold one long edge about 2/3 of the way over top to give it that traditional stollen shape.

5. Bake for 45 minutes or until deep brown on top and a toothpick poked in the centre comes out clean. While the stollen is baking, melt the butter.

6. Remove the stollen from the oven, brush it with the melted butter and dust with icing sugar. Let cool. Before slicing and serving, dust with additional icing sugar.