Merry Christmas #6 and #26

December 24, 2009

Yes, I’m still making my way through that 30 Foods List. I may not have accomplished it all by my 31st birthday (this past Oct), but I’m determined to follow through and finish the list soon. I think my New Year’s resolution will be to finish it by June.
Yesterday I took on two of the Christmas recipes I listed – #6 Gingerbread men and #26 Stollen bread.

The Gingerbread men simply because I’ve never even made gingerbread of any kind. My mom doesn’t like gingerbread so it wasn’t part of our Christmas celebrations growing up.

The Stollen because I fell in love with this bread when I worked in a bakery. We would bake loaves and loaves of it during the month of December. I’m also drawn to it because of my German roots.
I chose some recipes I liked from the web, stocked up and got baking. Let’s start out by saying that it wasn’t exactly the most successful baking day.
The gingerbread men turned into round gingerbread cookies. I cut the recipe in half and I think I didn’t add enough flour. I couldn’t roll and cut them out, even after cooling the dough. However, the recipe I used from Good Things Catered is fantastic! I love the flavor and the gingerbread is nice and soft. I didn’t end up with what I intended, but the cookies were still tasty and festive.


Although, I think I’m the only one in the family who likes gingerbread. Therefore, I could be the only one eating them. Cut-outs or not, based on that little tid-bit of info. I’m glad I made a half batch and they freeze well!

I enjoyed every part of the process of making the Stollen – the sponge and dough, the kneading, the baking. Bread is just my thing. I only need to perfect my ability for making it. I can’t seem to align my love of baking it with truly great results.

I followed a recipe from In Mama’s Kitchen and instead of candied fruit I used dried cherries, dried pineapple and raisins. I was trying to get around products with high fructose corn syrup and most candied fruit has it. A friendly reader sent me a source for some without it last year, but I procrastinated and never got around to ordering any.


The bread has potential. The flavor of the fruit, spices and rum really come through. It was just a little denser than it should have been. I also tried to get away without adding the glaze which we used to put on top of the ones I made at the bakery, but in all honesty I really like that addition. Next time I will probably glaze them to add a little more sweetness.

So I’m not completely disappointed, but I will be attempting both again. Good, but not great, however, still worth the effort.

Did you try any new recipes this year? How did they turn out?

I want to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas! Whether you celebrate it or not, I hope you will feel all the warmth and happiness this holiday can bring. Thank you for reading Fake Food Free and for all your great comments. I’m looking forward to continuing this blog, and all the friendships I’ve found through it, into 2010.

Merry Christmas!!

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  • kat December 24, 2009 at 5:55 am

    Your stollen bread looks like a lot of the whole wheat breads I make in density. Perhaps it just needed a longer rise or a little more yeast. We tried so many new recipes this year I couldn’t even start to list them. Merry Christmas!

  • Erica December 24, 2009 at 5:55 am

    Its always good to try new recipes- keeps you on your toes, right? The bread sounds really yummy and I think I would much prefer it with dried vs. candied fruit. I’m always trying new recipes! In fact, I’m making three new to me hummus recipes today. I am VERY excited. Merry (almost) Christmas to you too

  • Andrea (Off Her Cork) December 24, 2009 at 7:05 am

    Lori this is an awesome post! I very much wanted to make some gingerbread this year (even bought the molasses!) but didn’t get a chance. Perhaps there is still time? I love it so much!

    I saw stollen bread for the first time in whole foods and had no idea what it was. Now that I read about it, it sounds fantastic! I might look into that more as well.

    This year I fiddled with two things. I made some chocolate cookies using beer which turned out fantastic. I also worked on tweaking the traditional Polish nutroll recipe to make it a bit healthier. That still needs some work but did turn out pretty tasty. So I’m pleased with that too!

  • cathy December 24, 2009 at 11:22 am

    Even the link to candied fruit from your reader has HFCS in it! ARGH! I am on the search for candied fruit without the foul stuff, but it seems an almost impossible task.

    Your recipes look great! Love the modifications you made to Stollen. I’ve never made that before. It does look good.

    Merry Christmas!

  • Fresh Local and Best December 24, 2009 at 11:42 am

    I’m going to keep in mind the gingerbread cookies, it something I like to have all year long. Just popping in to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday!

  • Daily Spud December 24, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    Gingerbread I’ve made but stollen is one of those things I’ve been promising myself that I would make. Perhaps I need a new years resolution to make it happen! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year Lori and will be continuing to read in 2010 🙂

  • OysterCulture December 25, 2009 at 7:11 am

    Merry Christmas to you too and I love gingerbread and stollen as well. Nothing speaks to me of the holidays more than the scent wafting through the house of all the wonderful spices from gingerbread. Its Christmas time!

  • Lori December 27, 2009 at 2:45 pm

    kat – Yeah, I think you are right. I definitely need to play around more with yeast breads. My family seemed to like it though. 🙂

    Erica – I’m finding I like the dried fruit in recipes better than candied.

    Andrea – Your recipes sound great! This is my first year for making gingerbread. Don’t know why it took me so long. I love it! My husband always tells me about the nut rolls he had growing up. I need to try to make one sometime.

    cathy – Is there something in this list that is HFCS that I don’t know about? This is what I had listed for their candied cherries – Cherries, sugar, glucose,
    citric acid (pH adjusting agent),
    sodium benzoate (preservative),
    artificial flavor, maltol,
    color (contains FD&C Red #40
    Certified color for red and
    FD&C Blue #1 &#5 for green),
    sulphiting agent (preservative), calcium chloride.
    Let me know if I’m missing something. I thought it was a good source, but maybe I’m wrong.

    Fresh Local and Best – Same to you! I was just think that I might pull out this gingerbread recipe in June. It is worthy of being enjoyed more than once a year!

    Daily Spud – Thank you! I was the same way about the stollen. I had planned to make it for years. Now I just need to make it better. 🙂

    OysterCulture – Thank you! I know what you mean about the gingerbread. The house smelled awesome!

  • Corinne December 28, 2009 at 7:22 am

    Lori,

    Your stollen looks great!! It is one of the things I make at Christmas (although I use a regular recipe). This year I made a cranberry-chocolate bread. It was a bon appetit recipe from Dori Greenspan, who is one of my favorite bakers. It was a spiced brioche loaf turned into bread – really good (but not healthy – 🙂

  • cathy December 30, 2009 at 10:41 am

    Lori – Sorry it’s taken so long to reply! You’re right – the red candied cherries are HFCS-free. I had looked at the green candied cherries, which DO have HFCS in them (as do a lot of the other products from Barry Farms).

  • Lori December 31, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    Corinne – The brioche sounds great. You need to start a blog! 🙂

    cathy – Thanks for getting back to me and pointing it out. I had my eye on cherries which is why it was the only one I checked out. Good to know about the other products.

  • Tangled Noodle January 6, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    Merry Belated Christmas! Gingerbread is indeed tasty but I enjoyed the gift of stollen from – of all places – our hotel in Manila. It was so delicious that I’m tempted to bake one off-season. 8-D

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