Evening all
So I keep seeing cinnamon buns on people’s blogs at the mo, and I keep being tempted to make them. I have also been loving stollen, and have seen some “mini bites” which I was tempted to attempt. So in the end I combined them, and have made stollen whirls! I was impressed by my kitchen creation!
I based them on the stollen recipe in Bake
Begin by putting 150g mixed dried fruit and 50g cranberries in a bowl with 50g ground almonds and 25ml rum/ whisky (or apple juice). Leave thiswhile you make the dough.
Warm 60ml milk (I do it for 25 secs in a microwave in a little cup) and add 1tsp quick yeast. Leave this for a bit.
In a big bowl put 250g plain flour (I used white spelt) with 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp mixed spice, 1tsp ground cardamon, 1tsp ground cloves, some grated nutmeg (basically whatever you love)….
Use a big wooden spoon to make a well in the flour, and pour in the milk/yeast mixture in, mixing it up until it loosely forms a dough.Leave it covered for ten minutes.
Then add in 60g butter (I use pure dairyfree) and 50g caster sugar and mix it in. At this stage it might look like breadcrumbs, but if you firmly push it together it will form a stiff dough. Leave again to rise (for 2 hours).
To prepare for the last bit, roll out 100g marzipan into a rectangle, and also grease a square tin.
Tip the dough out (I put it onto a board “floured” with icing sugar as it was the one I did the marzipan on!) and mix in approx half the dried fruit mixture and knead this into the dough. Then roll the dough into a rectangle. Spread the rest of the fruit mixture over the dough (as evenly as possible) and push it down a bit. Place the rectangle of marzipan over the top, then roll it up along the long side, so you get a long log. Cut into 9 slices (although you could make more, 9 fitted into my square tin) and place in the tin. Any left over fruit can be squashed in too!
Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for about an hour, then preheat the oven to 200C and bake. These took just under 40 minutes- I kept checking after 30.
Dust with icing sugar to get the authentic stollen look!
They go perfectly with a cup of tea!
Aside from that, I managed a 5 mile run today- it was so damp and dreary and drizzly outside that it was hard to motivate myself, but I decided I should make the most of the clear pavements! Plus I felt much better once I got out in the fresh air.
Thank you by the way to everyone who replied on my post yesterday- I have decided that whatever plan I choose (well, I think it will be a mixture of a few) that I will only do one 20 mile run. That will be enough for me 🙂
I was also excited to recieve a parcel in the post!
Some yummy cereals from Natures Path. I emailed them ages ago after using their gluten free cereal in some baking for my coeliac friend, and they emailed back to say they were launching in the UK and so would send some samples to me! My fave thing was that the address label said “Running Cupcake” on it! I wonder what the delivery guy thought?
The range of cereals looks yummy (and cute names too) and I look forward to trying them all (and so does Andy!).
I also managed a pop to the local shops and got a pretty silver sparkly scarf from Accessorize. I was after a black coat but I only managed to find size 6 or size 22. Oh well I can wait! I did also find Whitards Christmas Tea for £2.50 in Waitrose- what a bargain!
Now I have a random question- I watched Fantastic Mr Fox this afternoon, and it was nothing like the story I remembered. Now, I don’t have a great memory (I have a tendancy to remember dreams and think they happened) but I thought the story was all about Mr Fox burrowing under the farms to get to the chickens etc? So am I remembering it wrong or is it actually a totally different story from the book?
and 
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. It was a great day- I love the fact that no-one is in a hurry, we spend ages playing silly games and it is totally relaxing. Eating wise, I had not enough fruit and veg, and too much cake, but in the grand scheme of things it is one day.
– I have seen so many fab looking recipes in there!)
