Bakery InnovationFrom Lucas
My Father’s Recipe
And here they are: classic German Christstollen.
This is my Dad’s original recipe, from his bakery on the edge of the Black Forest. It has not changed much in a very long time, and there is a reason for that. The flavours came from I.T.S. and the malt extract from EDME Ingredients.
If you are wondering why we are baking Christmas bread in the first week of November, that is the point of stollen. It is made well ahead and left to mature, so the butter and the fruit have weeks to settle into the crumb. Bake it in late December and you have missed what makes it good.
But it would not be me if I did not try something new.
There are two batches in the pictures. One is my father’s, exactly as it should be. The other has sourdough added — and it really highlights the butter flavour.
That is the part I find interesting. The sourdough is not there to make the stollen taste sour, and it does not. A little acidity lifts the perception of butter and dairy in a way that is hard to achieve any other way; it works more like a seasoning than a flavour of its own. You do not taste the sourdough. You taste more butter.
To get there, the sourdough was made with a special fermentation flour from Heygates, chosen specifically because it drives the acidity. That was a deliberate choice, not a default one.
It is the opposite setting to the one we used on the kebab breads a few weeks ago, where the whole point was a mild, low-acid culture that stayed out of the way. Same tool, turned the other direction, because this product wanted something different from it.
Two batches, one variable, baked side by side. That is the only way to know whether a change is actually an improvement — and in this case, I think it is.
Though I should say: you do not change your father’s recipe lightly. That one stays exactly as it is.
“You do not taste the sourdough. You taste more butter.” — Lucas Fussnegger
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Christstollen?
Christstollen is a traditional German Christmas bread, enriched with butter and packed with dried fruit, candied peel and almonds, then finished with a heavy dusting of icing sugar.
Why is stollen made weeks before Christmas?
Stollen is matured after baking so the butter and fruit flavours develop and settle into the crumb. Baking it well in advance is part of the recipe rather than simply good planning.
Can you make stollen with sourdough?
Yes. Adding sourdough to an enriched stollen dough does not make it taste sour — a controlled level of acidity enhances the perception of butter and dairy in the finished product.
What is a fermentation flour?
A fermentation flour is selected or produced to support a particular fermentation outcome — in this case, a flour chosen to drive acidity in the sourdough rather than simply to build structure.
