Kerststol, or feeststol as it is now often called, is a delicious kind of bread filled with raisins, almond paste and nuts. This recipe is pretty traditional, but you can give it your own spin by changing up the fillings.
Kerststol | Feeststol
Prep Time:
2 hours
Cook Time:
40 minutes
Additional Time:
10 minutes
Total Time:
2 hours 50 minutes
Dutch bread with raisins, nuts and almond paste.
Ingredients
Dough
- 350 grams of Flour
- 10 grams of Instant Yeast
- 50 grams of White Sugar**
- 150 grams of Milk*
- 1 Egg*
- 4 grams of Speculaaskruiden
- Optional: 5 grams of Salt
- 75 grams of Butter
Filling
- 125 grams of Yellow Raisins
- 125 grams of Blue Raisins
- 100 grams of Chopped Almonds or Hazelnuts
- 200 grams of Almond Paste
- Optional: Some Lemon Zest
Decorate
- Melted Butter
- Powdered Sugar
Instructions
- Place both kinds of raisings into a bowl and add lukewarm water, let them soak for 15 minutes.
- Strain the raisins and pat them dry with a kitchen towel.
- Combine with the chopped almonds and set aside.
- Heat the milk until it's lukewarm.
- Mix together the flour, yeast, sugar, speculaaskruiden and salt.
- Add in the milk and egg and knead for about 8 minutes.
- Add the butter, in cubes, to the dough and knead until the dough is smooth and subtle.
- Add in the raisins and chopped almonds and knead well.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a towel.
- Let it rise for one hour.
- Optional: Combine almond paste and lemon zest.
- Optional: Divide both the dough and almond paste into two portions.
- Shape the almond paste into a cylinder.
- Roll out the dough into a rectangle of about 1 centimetres thick.
- Place an almond paste cylinder into the middle of the dough.
- Fold over the dough, press the layers together and create some indents.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise for another 40 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Bake for 20 minutes, then turn down the heat to 160 degrees Celsius and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes.
- Brush the bread with melted butter and cover it with powdered sugar.
- Let it cool completely.
Notes
*Make sure this ingredient is at room temperature.
**In Dutch this is called 'witte basterdsuiker', I couldn't find a proper translation. It's like brown sugar, but made with clear sugar syrup and granulated sugar.