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1 cup warm buttermilk (235 ml)

¼ cup honey (60 ml)

juice of one lemon (30 ml)

1 cup water (235 ml)

2 tablespoons butter (28 g)

The lemon and fennel combination make a delicate, buttery, light and tender loaf. If you aren’t keen on fennel, the bread is good without it, but it does add a distinct gourmet touch. If you want to omit the fennel, poppy seeds are pretty and harmonize nicely—or go seedless.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Mix the dry ingredients, including the lemon peel, in a large bowl.

Mix the buttermilk and honey and add them to the dry ingredients, then stir until partially mixed. Stir the lemon juice and the water together and then add, mixing the whole together. Finally, add the yeast mixture and combine to make a soft dough. This sequence may seem complicated, but it protects the yeast.

Knead very well, adding the butter in tiny cold chips after the dough has become supple and elastic. Knead until completely absorbed.

Form the dough into a ball and place it smooth side up in the bowl. Cover and keep in a warm, draft-free place. After about an hour and a half, gently poke the center of the dough about ½ inch deep with your wet finger. If the hole doesn’t fill in at all or if the dough sighs, it is ready for the next step. Press flat, form into a smooth round, and let the dough rise once more as before. The second rising will take about half as much time as the first.

Press the dough flat and divide in two. Round it and let it rest until relaxed, then deflate and shape into loaves. Place in greased 8″ 4″ loaf pans and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until the dough slowly returns a gently made fingerprint. Bake about 50 minutes at 350°F.

My Heart’s Brown Stollen

4 teaspoons active dry yeast (½ oz or 14 g)

½ cup warm water (120 ml)

7 cups finely ground whole wheat bread flour (1650 g)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (300 g)

2 teaspoons salt (11 g)

1 cup small curd cottage cheese (235 ml)

2 cups hot water (475 ml)

¾ cup honey (175 ml)

¼ cup rum (60 ml)

3 eggs

¾ cup butter (170 g)

There are perhaps as many traditional recipes for stollen as there are bakers of it. Ours is a new tradition, as good as the old ones but not so wildly rich. The rum is optional, but it does provide a heady dash. (If you prefer a boozier stollen, soak the dried fruit in rum overnight before you proceed.) The cottage cheese makes the bread at once tenderer and a little less reprehensible nutritionally, and is quite traditional in some parts of Germany.

This recipe makes two large stollen or several small ones. It keeps well for over a week, but store in the freezer if you want to keep it longer. It is truly special sliced super thin and served for Christmas tea.

A note here on the baking: Try to use heavy cookie sheets, and keep the bread away from the bottom of the oven if yours tends to overheat there, as most do. It may help to put a second cookie sheet under the first one, especially on the bottom rack. Turn and reverse the loaves halfway through if they are not baking evenly.

Dissolve the yeast in the ½ cup water.

Stir the flours and the salt together. Mix the cottage cheese, hot water, honey, and rum together well, then add the eggs. Add to flour mixture. Mix the dough and knead about 10 minutes, then work in the butter. Stop kneading when the butter is all incorporated; you will be working the dough more when you add the fruits and nuts.

Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place. Deflate it after an hour and a half or more, when your wet finger makes a hole in the center of the dough that does not fill in. Return the dough to its warm place to rise again. Meantime, prepare the fruit.

Chop all of the fruit so that it is about the size of raisins. If your apricots or peaches are very leathery, pour boiling water over them and let them stand until they are softer, but not mushy! All the fruit for this bread should be firm in texture so it doesn’t get lost in the dough as you knead it in. If your almonds are not very tasty, toast