Matcha Stollen with Rose Marzipan Filling

If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible.
~ Chuck Palahniuk

I had spent 3 Christmases in Germany while I worked there years ago, and every time the festive season rolled around, the shops, markets and bakeries were filled to the brim with beautiful baked goodies bearing the scents of cinnamon, almond, apples and all the heartwarming things of the earth. Stollens would be amongst the good things in abundance and I never missed the opportunity to purchase and savor them - lots of them! The ones I especially enjoy are the marzipan-filled stollens, so moist and heart-stoppingly rich...it's no wonder I was then double the size I am today!

You may have noticed that I have done zilch-all on this blog lately. It's not that I've stopped cooking or baking completely, for if you're on Instagram, you may have spotted some of my baked goods being captured and uploaded for posterity there. It just seems to me like everything I do right now is bordering on the (how shall I phrase this?)...UGLY. Yes, that's right. Not nearly postable, in fact downright yuckky. Or maybe that's just how I'm feeling inside.

Anyway, a quick peek at the blogosphere shows me that many people around the world are in a celebratory mood, and therefore coming up with joyous kinds of food. The festive season has dawned, Ms. Foodiva, so why don't you get with the program already? 

So yes, today I decide to crawl out of my own blue funk and attempt a blasphemous take on the Christmas Stollen. One with a green dough laden with premium matcha and filled with a homemade marzipan roll that's just on the shady side of pink due to the rose syrup I used to flavor it. Apart from the usual dried raisins and cherries, I also kneaded in some homemade candied ginger and candied lemon and orange peels, but didn't bother with the nuts and spices. As someone who's eaten plenty of stollens in her life, take it from me, you won't find this exotic one anywhere on the planet (yet) outside of my very own kitchen!

I won't tire you needlessly with the history of stollens and what the swaddled loaf signifies, but if you're interested you can have a quick read here. What I am going to regale you with, however, is the tale of what actually happened to me while I was baking this. After I was done making the marzipan and candied ginger/peels (which I dried under the hot sun and not overnight as should have been done), I set about to make the dough and film the process while I was at it.

You can imagine that the set up took a fair amount of time and by the second hour into the first rising, it was very nearly 5pm and the precious sun was sinking fast in tandem with my heart. Then I suddenly remembered  I had to be at another place at 5pm, an important appointment that had totally slipped my mind, so I had to abandon the dough and tend to real life first.

2 hours later (4 hours total first rising), I returned to find my dough hadn't exploded and as a favor to me, had risen very, very slowly. Phew... all was well.

Normally after the process of baking, the fresh loaves are buttered two times before they get a coat of sugar. I buttered mine before and after baking, just to be on the safe side of decadence. What usually happens to the stollen after the sugar coating is that it is sealed to allow the fruits and spices (if you're using any) to develop their flavors. The sealing is also the reason a stollen can be stored and stay fresh for a long time.

The texture of this stollen is somewhere in between a bread and a cake and is an excellent alternative to a traditional Christmas cake. Although my rolling wasn't quite up to my usual standards, causing the marzipan cylinder to happily sit on one side, it didn't affect the taste of the loaf one bit. Yes, it's not my most beautiful stollen, but then so what...it's festive and rocks to the high heavens with original flavors. It certainly does not want to be invisible!

Matcha Stollen with Rose Marzipan Filling

(adapted from One Perfect Bite)
Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients:
2¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons matcha powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 scant tablespoon dry instant yeast
1/2 cup milk
6 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup raisins
2 tablespoons candied orange peel, finely chopped (see recipe below)
1 tablespoon candied lemon peel, finely chopped
1 teaspoon candied ginger strips, finely chopped
1/2 cup quartered, glaced cherries (mixed red and green)
250g rose-flavored marzipan/almond paste (see recipe below)
2 tablespoons butter, melted for brushing
icing or confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Method:
1. Mix salt with flour in a microwavable bowl. Place in microwave oven and heat on HIGH power for 1 minute. Whisk. Add matcha powder and yeast and whisk again to mix. Set aside.
2. Combine milk, butter and sugar in a microwavable bowl. Cook on HIGH power for 1 minute, or until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. When mixture is tepid add egg and whisk to combine.
3. Pour milk mixture into flour and mix well until the dough leaves the sides of bowl and forms a ball. Add candied fruits and nuts working into dough with hands.
4. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes, or until fruits and nuts are evenly distributed.
5. Place dough into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place until doubled in size, about 2 to 3 hours.
6. Turn onto a lighly floured board. Flatten and roll into a 14 x 8-inch rectangle, about 1cm thick.
7. Form almond paste into a log about 13-inches long. Place in the middle of dough, then roll dough around it. Pinch the and two ends of the cylinder and turn edges under. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place dough on parchment paper, cover with damp towel and let rise until double, about 1 hour. Brush loaf with melted butter, and set aside the remainder of the butter.
8. Preheat oven to 180C/375F. Bake in the center of oven for about 35 minutes, or until an even golden brown. Move loaf to cooling rack. Brush top with melted butter. Let cool for 30 minutes. Dust liberally with confectioners' sugar. Can be frozen up to a month and also keeps at room temperature for a few days if wrapped with plastic wrap.


Candied Ginger, Orange and Lemon Peels
(Adapted from Wild Yeast)


Ingredients:
1 medium lemon
1 medium orange
2-inches fresh ginger
water for blanching
2 cups caster sugar
1 cup water

Method:
1. Score the orange and lemon peel in quarters. Peel off, leaving the orange and lemon whole.
2. Peel and slice the ginger into thin strips, set aside.
3. In a saucepan, cover the peels with cold water. Bring to a boil, drain, and rinse the peels in cold water.
4. Slice each peel into 4 strips. Blanch the peel strips twice more, changing the water each time.
5. In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
6. Add the ginger and peels, then reduce the heat and simmer until the peels are starting to become translucent, about 45 minutes.
7. Drain the ginger and peels, reserving the syrup in a jar for future use.
8. Place the peels in a single layer on a wire rack and allow to dry overnight.
9. Store in an airtight container, or in the freezer. Store the syrup in the refrigerator.

Rose-Flavored Marzipan


Ingredients:
250g of peeled almonds
1/2 cup icing/confectioners sugar
1-2 tablespoons rose syrup (Monin)
1 small egg white

Method:
1. In a food processor, pulse the almonds until you obtain a very fine almond flour.
2. Add the sugar a quarter cup at a time and pulse until very well combined.
3. Finally add the egg white and one tablespoon rose syrup. Pulse until the mixture starts to resemble marzipan. Pinch a bit of the dough and press in between your fingers, it should feel soft and pliable. Add more almond flour and rose syrup if necessary.
4. Roll the dough in a plastic film and refrigerate it for at least one hour. After that take it out and place on a clean surface dusted lightly with confectioners sugar. Roll out the dough and fold it two or three times.Roll into a 13-inch long cylinder and return it to refrigerator. The dough is ready to be used when it is no longer sticky.

Pull-Apart Chocolate Matcha Swirl Bread with Kit Kat Filling

This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time.

~Frances E. Willard

Yes, I know it's Friday. And I know this is not the scheduled French Friday with Dorie's recipe post. I'm sorry, but I'm slightly distracted. Due to my recent fascination with various forms of pull-apart bread, I've embarked on yet another breadmaking adventure this week, this time involving pull-apart buns. Filled buns...spiral-patterned buns filled with Kit Kat bits.

Crispy Matcha Apam Balik (Crispy Green Tea Crêpes) with Raspberry and Crushed Nuts

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
Mark Twain

Here's a lovely foodtruck idea for you. Or rather, for those of you who operate a foodtruck business, in which case I am completely envious. A blogger friend of mine recently asked my thoughts on comfort food, and while I described to her two of my favorites, I forgot to mention this slice of earthly delight - apam balik. Literally translated, it means pancake turnovers, a very Malay street fare popular in the night/food markets of Brunei and Malaysia. 

FFWD - Spinach and (Not-Quite) Bacon Quiche

Before you ask, I don't quite know what possessed me to make a crust with those green strips sticking out at the top, but there it is. We all just have to live with it....besides, they didn't really make any difference to the overall taste of this quiche. A little bit of aesthetics (or eyesore, whichever side you're on) never killed anyone, it just makes you see things in a different way.

Vanilla (Chocolate & Matcha) Éclairs - French Fridays with Dorie

Its only my second week of French Fridays with Dorie, and the complexity of the recipes has already risen up a notch. From leisurely steaming broccoli last week to this, making éclairs. I was slightly intimidated to start off with but then realized that I had no real reason to be. Despite common perception, éclairs are actually not that complicated to make especially when you've got Dorie's soothing words guiding you.

My arsenal of choice for this challenge consisted of a wooden spoon, different-sized ziplock bags, gigantic piping tips, an ice water bath and really strong arms. Okay, I cheated on the arms part and gave in to the convenience of an electric whisk. If you even have the slightest intention of conjuring up choux pastry and its accompanying custard cream filling one day, then this you should know, there's going to be some seriously heavy duty stirring/whisking involved! So be prepared and muscle up your strong arm.

My ridge fetish

I don't want to mislead you into thinking that this was the first time I've ever attempted éclairs, oh no....I have made these puff, puff babies before. Once. My last flavor combination was lavender and black sesame éclairs with dulce de leche pastry cream filling. Quite the adventurous little missy I was, and I won't even waste your time explaining the rationale behind that feat. In short, those flavors worked amazingly well. You'll probably be relieved to know that this time round, the recipe in Dorie's book, 'Around My French Table' stated simply Vanilla Éclairs. Sadly, I had no excuse to go too far off the plot.

Saying that, however, I couldn't claim the right to call mine an adventurer's kitchen if I didn't at least try to explore other possibilities. So here are some things I did a bit differently to my heart's calling:

1. I used a star tip to pipe out my choux pastry because I actually like the beauty of ridges on my éclairs.

2. I opted for a bitter-ish, dark chocolate ganache glaze instead of the tart, sugary version suggested in the recipe. The ganache made for easy glazing, especially on the ridges. I just dipped the tops of the éclairs in the soft ganache and it spread very readily over and in between the ridges.

3. Apart from the vanilla flavored pastry cream, I also made additional chocolate and matcha cream fillings. It was easy, I just divided the vanilla cream into 3 equal portions, added melted chocolate to one and a teaspoon of matcha powder to the other. The third portion was left plain.

4. As I was preparing to fill the choux fingers, I had a lightning (haha) moment. Wouldn't it be a great idea to pipe two flavors into each éclair? Chocolate-vanilla. Vanilla-Matcha. Matcha-Chocolate. You get the idea. The execution wasn't as simple - I had to engineer a large enough piping bag out of heavy duty plastic ziplock, and fitted two little baby ziplocks in there filled with the different flavored pastry creams. Not a pretty sight as you can see below, but it worked. You can't tell from these photos but I actually had bi-flavored éclairs. It's nice to have a little bit of something for everyone, you know.

My makeshift ziplock piping bag for dispensing the double-flavored pastry cream!

5. It was raining a typical rainforest thunderstorm the day I made these so I knew there would be trouble as far as maintaining the puffiness of the pastry was concerned. Luckily, I'd burnt my fingers from hot ovens too many times just so I could gain this knowledge... which is, the best strategy for combating humidity is to let the cooked choux pastry dry and cool in the oven well after the stated cooking time. I simply turned off the heat, lodged a wooden spoon in the oven door (to keep it ajar) and left it for an hour. Guess what, the choux fingers stayed proudly puffy....not a single one had deflated.

Chocolate, vanilla, matcha or me?

So there you have it, a recount of my fairly uneventful (but plenty messy!) éclair attempt. The verdict from The Clan was super-thumbs up! Oh, the kids didn't really notice the double flavors so I managed to get them to down some matcha which is a sizeable achievement. If you wish to learn the recipe, you'll likely have to buy the book. After which, you might as well join along and cook with us. Take your pick of éclairs from the other FFWD bloggers here.