December

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge

Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends,

techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

I kept the recipe fairly simple. I've never made bread and I wasn't sure if I would make this work well. Nor did I think I would have time. December is a busy month for me. I turned another year older. But I was determined to do this.

My stollen was made with rum soaked raisins, maraschino cherries, almonds, marzipan and lemon and orange zest. The only day that I had enough time to bake this was on Christmas day, as I have this tendency to wake up really early in the morning. So as the sun rose, my baking went forth. I planned to bring it with us to Christmas dinner at my sister's apartment. Unfortunately, the turkey time was a little later than anticipated so we didn't partake of the stollen that night, but my sister cut away a section for her and our parents to have, and I took the rest home. I had it the next morning as my breakfast with lemon-ginger tea. It was a delicious breakfast, unfortunately, very sweet. :(

I enjoyed this challenge because it was something I have never had done before.

Let's see what happens next month.