I love marzipan (some don't) so Christmas is a great time with all the Christmas cakes. This sweet fruited loaf has plenty of marzipan, but it's lighter than rich fruit cake (so I can eat more of it!)
Weigh 500g of strong white flour into a bowl and add 225g of dried mixed fruit. Here's a tip: Aldi luxury dried mixed fruit includes cherries and cranberries so it's great for Christmas recipes (maybe not for regular fruit buns.) It's £1.49 for 500g so good value too. No I'm not sponsored!
Add a teaspoon of mixed spice, as well as half a teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 75g of caster sugar.
Mix those ingredients together so that all the fruit is coated with flour (always do this with any cake recipe, it stops the fruit from sinking.) Then add the contents of two sachets of instant yeast and stir that all in.
In a jug measure 75ml of water and 150ml of milk, then cut 75g of butter in small chunks into the liquid. Pop the jug into the microwave for about a minute, then stir it up so that the butter is just melting, but the liquid is not boiling.
Make a well in the dry mixture and pour in the liquid.
Stir the liquid into the flour mixture, then start mixing it with your hand until it all comes together, coming away from the sides of the bowl.
When it starts forming a dough, take it out and knead it for around 10 minutes. Then replace it in the wiped, oiled bowl, and cover with oiled clingfilm.
Leave in a warm place to prove for an hour or so. As the dough is heavily fruited, enriched and sweetened the yeast has to work harder to raise the dough and may take longer than a bread dough to double in size.
When it has proved it's time to add the marzipan. Roll the dough out to a rough oblong about 1cm thick. Roll, slice or 'squidge' about 250g of marzipan into an oblong that will cover around 2/3rds of the dough. Leave a gap at the edges. If you like marzipan, you can add more. If heaven forbid, you don't like marzipan, then why not leave it out? You could add a fruit conserve or maybe mincemeat in its place.
Fold the empty third of the dough half way across the marzipan, then roll it over again, so you have a long seam underneath.
Press the ends to seal them well, then place the stollen on a baking tray with baking paper and re-cover with the oiled clingfilm and leave to prove for another 1/2 hour while you heat the oven to around 220degC.
You'll need a good 40 minutes or so to cook the stollen through. It will get quite dark on the outside but can still be raw in the middle, if it's getting too dark turn the oven down about halfway through. Mine was rising nicely, but then sprang a leak and lost a lot of marzipan from the middle! To test if it's done roll the loaf over and press the bottom in the middle, it should spring back slightly.
Remove any burned fruit clinging onto the outside and any leaked marzipan, then allow to cool thoroughly before cutting it or else the marzipan will all run out! Finish it with a good dusting of icing sugar and enjoy with some mulled wine. Happy Christmas!
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