A Harte Appetite: Dresden and the history of stollen

I well remember the devastation I felt when, following the intimations of family and friends, I began to wonder if there really was a Santa Claus. After all, it wasn't that long ago. I was 45 at the time.

My sense of demoralization must be akin to that experienced by the citizens of Dresden, Germany, in the wake of recent claims that their city may not be the birthplace of stollen, the archetypical holiday pastry of Saxony. For half a millennium the residents of Dresden have been telling people that they invented it.

Now that boast has been challenged. A couple of years ago, a German chef and cookbook author named Reinhard Lammel unearthed evidence that suggests the pastry was first created at Hartenstein Castle in the neighboring town of Torgau nearly 20 years before anybody in Dresden had ever heard of it.

Naturally, this has come as quite a shock to Dresden, which has invested heavily in the notion that its name is synonymous with the famed German Christmas bread studded with nuts and candied fruit, laced with spices, typically filled with marzipan and oblong-shaped with a ridge down the middle to represent the baby Jesus in swaddling clothes.

Every year around the holidays, for example, Dresden puts on a stollen festival, an event which can trace its roots back to 1730 when August the Strong, the lord of Saxony, sponsored an exhibition, the centerpiece of which was a 27-foot-long stollen weighing almost two tons. It took some 60 pastry chefs to produce it, baking it for six hours in an oversize oven constructed especially for the occasion. It took a team of eight horses to transport it by wagon to the festival site. It was, however, merely a tidbit compared to the stollens produced for recent festivals. They usually are twice the size, containing, among other things, more than 3,000 pounds of flour, 1,700 pounds of butter, 1,000 pounds of sugar and two million raisins. The highlight of the festival is the ceremonial cutting of this giant stollen by the Royal Master Baker and the reigning Stollen Maiden using a colossal silver-plated stollen knife.

This Christmas stollen from Lubeley's Bakery in St. Louis is reminiscent of those first created in Germany 500 years ago. (TOM HARTE)

Clearly Dresdners take their stollen seriously -- and that, in the final analysis, is probably more important than where the delicacy originated anyway. That's why, when traveling to Dresden is not convenient, I go to Lubeley's Bakery, the oldest family bakery in St. Louis, where German baking traditions are still meticulously upheld. They surely didn't invent stollen either, but like the folks in Dresden, they have refined it to a high art. As the chairman of the Dresden Stollen Protection Association (yes, of course, there really is one) observes, it does not matter who baked what 500 years ago. What matters is who is doing the best job today. That's a truth that applies to stollen any way you slice it.

Easy Christmas Stollen

For those times when you can't get to Lubeley's, let alone Dresden, try this easy recipe that simplifies things by using baking powder instead of yeast, so you don't even have to wait for it to rise. The recipe is adapted from Good Housekeeping.

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

Robert Lubeley shows off some of his authentic hand-made German stollens available at his family bakery in St. Louis. (TOM HARTE)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter

1 cup ricotta cheese

1/2 cup coarsely chopped red candied cherries

1/2 cup coarsely chopped dried cherries

1/3 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel

1 egg

1 egg yolk

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in ricotta until moistened. Stir in remaining ingredients. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead to blend. Roll into a 10-by-2 inch oval and fold lengthwise almost in half, letting bottom dough extend about 1 inch beyond edge of top dough. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until tester comes out clean. Cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Tom Harte's book, "Stirring Words," is available at local bookstores. A Harte Appetite airs Fridays 8:49 a.m. on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Contact Tom at news@semissourian.com or at the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO, 63702-0699.