DutchAstrid's Gluten Free Kerststol

And here it is: the English translation of the gluten free kerststol post of December 24, 2013. Enjoy!

My first gluten free Christmas, but what was to come of our traditional Christmas breakfast? Because I can survive a Christmas without croissants, but without Christmas bread? It wouldn't be Christmas!

Thank goodness I like baking, and after some poking about the Internet and comparing a couple of recipes, I compiled my own recipe. Baked it yesterday and... It looks like a kerststol, it smells like a kerststol, but... well, does it taste like a kerststol?

Well, I won't know until tomorrow, because in this house sacred tradition demands us not to cut into our Christmas bread before Christmas Day. On top of that, kerststol is supposed to ripen for flavour for at least two days, so that's what I'll do like a good litlle girl.

Kerststol, originally uploaded by DutchAstrid.

Here's my recipe:

- 200 g raisins
- 50 ml orange liqueur

- Lieke Is Vrij Witbroodmix This is a Dutch brand of gf products. It already has salt in it. You can
   substitute 450 g of any brand of salted gf white bread flour(like this one for instance) for it (or
   add a quarter teaspoon of salt).
- 440 ml + extra almond milk
- 7 g dried yeast
- 30 g caster sugar (white)
- 175 + 50 g melted butter (grass-fed)
- 160 g roughly chopped wallnuts

- 300 g almond paste, roughly cubed
- 1 egg yoke
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- powdered sugar

- Soak the raisins in the liqueur, warm them to help the proces and set aside.
- Did you chop your wallnuts? ;) 

- Mix (in a food processor) almond paste with lemon juice and egg yolk. 

- Vorm into a roll as long as your bread will be. 

- Wrap in cling film and set aside in the refrigirator.

- Warm milk till lukewarm and solve sugar in milk.
- Put the bread flour in the food processor and scatter the yeast on top of it.
- Add almond milk, 175 g melted butter, and mix into dough.
- Transfer dough into a large oven dish and flatten it out a bit.

- Drain the raisins.
- Spread wallnuts and raisins on top of dough and pinch/knead them through the dough.

- Grease a large piece of parchment paper.
- Transfer the dough onto the paper and shape it into an oval.(use wet hands to prevent
   stickiness!).
- Place the roll almond paste (without cling film) on the dough and fold the dough while using
   the parchment paper, over the almond paste roll. Gently press along the seam to close up.
  You're sealing the almond paste into the bread.
- Transfer the stol with parchment paper onto a baking sheet and let it rise till double in size in
   an oven at 50°C. ± 1-1,5 hours.

Kerststol, originally uploaded by DutchAstrid.

- Take the stol out of the oven and while the oven heats up to a 180°C, glaze the bread with
   almond milk.

- Bake the bread in the preheated oven in about 50-60 minutes till golden brown.

- Take out of the oven and place on a cooling rack, brush on melted butter immediately, and
  sprinkle with powdered sugar.

- Leave the bread, under cover of a clean kitchen towel, to ripen for at least one night.

Smakelijk Kerstfeest!

 Update:
 We like it!

How to eat a kerststol:
Cut off a slice. With your knife, take the almond paste from the bread and spread it across the slice of bread. Spread generously with butter and digg in!

Kerststol, originally uploaded by DutchAstrid.