The Perennial Debate (well at least with my Mother)

Two Loaves of braided german christmas bread - unbaked on a parchment lined cookie tin

Two loaves of Christmas bread after being baked

Ball of christmas bread dough after adding all the fruit and spice

Ropes of bread dough being prepared for braiding and adding in marzipan in the center.

Kuchen dough topped with spice and dried fruit before it is folded in.

Growing up, every Christmas we made a German Christmas bread with dried fruit and nuts that came from my paternal grandfather’s family, which was named “Christmas Kuchen.” We always called it Kuchen for short.

Apparently at some point, one of the neighbors down the road told my mom that it was not the correct name. It was properly called Stollen. From that my Mom weaved quite a tale about how Kuchen means cake, and what we make is a bread, therefore it could not have been called Kuchen. Maybe my grandmother was mistaken about the name…or something…my Mom would speculate.

While it is true that: the Christmas bread is sold as Stollen anywhere you look (in America); that Kuchen translates to cake; and our Christmas Kuchen was raised with yeast and made in standard bread-pans, it is not the case that an incorrect name was passed down with the family recipe.

Every so often, I have some some light research into the naming of the family recipe. My family was from Bavaria, and Bavarian German is a distinct dialect from the Prussian dialect, which must people learn. When I went to FUS, I had a classmate from Bavaria he confirmed that there are some significantly different word uses that make the local dialect not easy to understand to those from other areas in Germany.

Then, last December, on one of my google searches, I struck information gold. I came across a webpage (I will try to remember to track down the link later). In it, a collection of dessert recipes and dessert history included information that solved this puzzle. Kuchen - traditionally - was not a baking soda raised cake; it was a yeast raised cake! The tradition Christmas Stollen is and always has been a kind of cake. My family just referred to it by the name of the dough which is used for a number of different kuchen recipes. Stollen was never incorrect, and neither was calling it Kuchen.

My family made a less sweet version. We did not add marzipan and we did not brush it with butter and cover it in powdered sugar. I am not sure if this was because that was the original method or if it was just a matter or economy because my grandparents got married in 1929 right before the crash, so we made it how my Dad remembered it.

Of course, I bought copies of the three books cited by the online article. One is a dictionary of desserts, and the other two are Jewish Cookbooks. One of those cookbooks has a German Stollen recipe that is very close to what we made with the exceptions I noted above.

I created a vegan version of the traditional Fehlner Christmas bread, and added some marzipan because I love it. The bread was exactly like what we made growing up. (That version of the recipe is available upon request.) After making one successful batch of dough, I made one and frozen three of four portions and experimented with some of the other yeast raised cakes.

So, I will leave it there for the story on this post. I am working from my phone on a whim, so apologies for typos. I will edit later to add (More) links.

Food Timeline - See Kuchen Entry on this Page

For now, all attributions will be with pictures.

Enjoy!