This German Stollen recipe makes a rich, fruit-studded loaf that is a festive and tasty German Christmas bread, perfect for celebrating with family or bringing to a holiday party! 

German Stollen: An age-old Christmas Bread

Stollen (pronounced SH-tohl-in) traces its history back to the 1400s in Dresden, Germany.  However, at that time, people of the Catholic Church did not eat butter during Advent (the four weeks preceding Christmas) as a part of their fasting preparation for the special celebration of Christ’s birth. With the abstinence from butter and rich foods, early Christmas breads were made from only flour, yeast, oil, and water. A far cry from the rich, fruited bread we know today, for years Stollen was a very dry and dull bread.

Towards the end of the 1400s, Lord Ernst of Saxony petitioned Pope Innocent VII to lift the Advent fast from butter, so that it could be used in their Christmas bread. An allowance was made, but for only Dresden, and they began the process of changing their traditional Christmas bread into the Stollen that we know today. Since the 1500s, Stollen has been sold at the Dresden Christmas market, which is the oldest known Christmas market in Europe.

German Christmas Bread today

Today, this German Christmas bread is colorfully studded with nuts, raisins, and candied orange and lemon rind. The traditional shape and white, powdered sugar topping symbolize the Christ Child wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Another legend holds that the traditional ridge down the top of the loaves represents the humps on the backs of the camels that the Wise Men rode, carrying their gifts to the Christ Child. The candied fruits represent the precious jewels that adorned these Wise Men.

Stollen: An interesting name

Miners thought the shape of the bread looked like the tunnels of their mines, which is where the bread actually gets its name. “Stollen” literally means “tunnel.” But, as the bread gained popularity, that name stuck, becoming the common term for this fruited Christmas bread.

Our German Stollen Recipe

Our Stollen recipe creates a rich and dense, pound cake-like bread. It is sweet and eggy, with hints of rum and a nice citrus flavor. The bursts of sweetness from the raisins and the occasional crunch of almond nuttiness give a fun mix of textures as you eat a slice and make it perfect for serving with a warm cup of coffee or spiced wine.

Making your own Candied Citrus Peel

You could use store-bought candied orange and lemon peel in the bread, but we find that sometimes these can be hard to track down. And, when we do, they are inevitably highly dyed, pumped with artificial flavoring, and full of high fructose corn syrup.

It is so easy to make your own candied citrus peel at home, and there’s really no comparison to the flavor of real citrus. If you’d like to make your own, you can check out our Candied Lemon and Orange Peel Recipe. We suggest making your peel the day before you start the bread to give it a chance to dry out and cool properly.