Christmas Calendar 2018 - Stollen bites

I am a huge fan of the German Christmas cake called "Stollen", which I have been baking at different occasions. So when I noticed a recipe on Stollen bites in Country Living issue December 2018, I knew at once, that I had to bake these small cake bites.

However, my experiment did not go as well as expected. I prefer, that the marzipan part of the cake in hidden inside, while the marzipan layer here is visible. The taste of the stollen bites is ok, so perhaps you should  just turn the bites into a whole cake instead of ?

In case you would like to try your hands on some Stollen cakes you can have a look into these recipes:

• German Christmas cake Stollen - one of  my favorite recipes
• Christollen
• Stollen with cranberries and marzipan
• Stollen with almond filling

Stollen bites: - 25-30 pieces

• 25 g dried cranberries
• 25 g raisins
• 25 g sucat
• 25 g orange peel
• 1 tablespoon rum
• 75 ml milk
• 75 g butter
• 1 organic orange - only the zest
• 225 g wheat flour
• 20 g fresh yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon - grounded
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice - grounded
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves - grounded
• 2 cardamon pods - only the seeds, which should be grounded
• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
• 200 g marzipan

1. Mix the dried rum and rum together in a small bowl. Let the dried fruit soak in the rum for minimum 2 hours or night over.
2. Weigh the remaining the ingredients (not the dried fruits) directly into the mixing bowl of the stand alone mixer. Keep salt & sugar away from the yeast.
3. Place the bowl on the stand-alone mixer.
4. Start knead the dough at speed 1 for 8 minutes.
5. Afterwards increase the speed to 4, knead for 2 minutes. Check the consistency of the dough. If it is not OK, when knead it at speed 4 for another 2 minutes. Again check the consistency. If needed, knead again for 1 minute and when check consistency of the dough.
6. Let the dough raise in the mixing bowl for 1-2 hours.
7. After the first raising add in the soaked dried fruit, knead the dough until the dried fruits are evenly distributed. 
8. Heat up the oven to 180'C.
9. Divide the dough into two parts.
10. Covered a baking tray, approx 15-20 cm on each side with baking parchment.
11. Roll out one dough portion into a shape fitting to the baking tray. Place the dough into the baking tray.
12. Roll out the marzipan to the same shape as the baking tray. Use icing sugar for dusting of the marzipan, when rolling it. Place the marzipan layer on top of the dough layer.
13. Roll out the second dough portion to the same shape as the baking tray. Place the dough layer on top of the marzipan layer.
14. Let the stollen raise for another 20-30 minutes.
15. Bake the stollen at 180'C in the middle of the oven for approx 25 minutes, until the cake is golden brown.
16. Cold down the stollen.
17. Cut the stollen into smaller pieces, Before serving you can dust the stollen bites with icing sugar.