Big Sur Bakery Holiday Stollen

Description from Quitokeeto

For a short window this year, we’re incredibly excited to be able to offer Big Sur Bakery’s much-celebrated holiday Stollen. It’s delivered straight to us from their tiny wood-fired bakery set, south of here, on the dramatic California coast. I email on occasion with baker Michelle Rizzolo; we have friends in common, and I love her work and sensibility. She wrote me a couple years back and mentioned that, each year, just after their busy Thanksgiving weekend, the bakery shuts down for their annual closing, and she gets to work making traditional Dresden Stollen. It’s special, and clearly made with a lot of love and care. -Heidi

Stollen is an ancient fruit bread/cake dating back to 500AD, when people baked in communal ovens and created preservation techniques still used today for this time-honored loaf. The Big Sur Bakery stollen is a yeasted dough, stuffed and studded with rummed raisins, candied citrus, quince and almond paste, then dipped and sealed in clarified butter. The flavors meld as the loaf cures under a layer of vanilla-scented organic sugar.

While we typically enjoy the stollen shortly after it arrives, it’s also brilliant for shipping and aging, becoming more complex over time – two, three, even six months after baking. The yeasted bread has a very long natural shelf life and tastes better with age. Michelle and the stollen elves say it best – this intricately flavored holiday loaf is a celebration of love and good taste to be savored as you and your family usher in a sweet new year.

HI ALL – 12/9. The first round of stollen went fast this morning. We have another stollen delivery slated very soon. Hopefully another 100-200. Hop on the list and you’ll get the email. – QK