Christmas Stollen

Take a small bowl, pour in the warm milk and let the yeast dissolve in it. Keep it aside for 10 minutes.

In a separate bowl, put in the yeast mixture with the sugar, egg, salt, butter, and 3/4 of the flour and beat them well. Now, add in the remaining flour, a little at a time, and continue stirring in between this time.

Once the dough beings to form together, put it on a floured surface, put the currants, sultanas, cherries, citrus peel and knead the dough. Knead for 7-8 minutes till the dough is smooth to touch.

Grease a large bowl, place the dough in this bowl and coat with oil. Cover it with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until it doubles in volume, this could take an 1 hour or so.

Grease a baking tray. Take the dough and put it on a lightly floured surface. Now roll the marzipan into a rope and place it in the centre of the dough. Then fold the dough so that it covers it, pinch the seams to seal.

Place this dough on the greased baking tray. Once again, cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rise till it doubles for about 40 minutes. Also preheat the oven to 180 degree celsius.

Bake this in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 150 degree celsius and bake for another 35-40 minutes or till it turns golden brown in colour.

Once cooked, let it cool on a wired rack. Dust the icing sugar on top of this loaf.