Marzipan Stollen

Cut the vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape out the little black seeds. Mix the marzipan with sugar and egg, chopped almonds, vanilla and the Amaretto. Cover it and let rest for at least an hour. Mix the flour with the baking soda. Beat together butter and sugar, add eggs, lemon peel and a pinch of salt. Knead the curd together with the flour and butter mixture into a dough. Shape the dough into a roll of about 10 inch length. Now roll out to a square of 10 x 12 inches. Put the marzipan filling onto the dough, leaving empty 1 inch around the edges. Roll up the dough, working from the longer side, pinch the ends together and push them underneath. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with some chopped almonds. Bake at 430 degrees (either an a baking sheet or in a special stollen form) for 55-60 minutes. Now melt 3 1/2 ounces of butter. Brush the finished stollen with the melted butter. Then sprinkle the stollen with powdered sugar and let cool on a rack. Don't cut until the next day. You can keep it for a week. Marzipan Stollen Filling: 200 g sweet almond paste 100 g confectioner sugar 2 cl Kirsch 125 g chopped almonds Dough: 800 g flour 50 g fresh yeast 1/4 l lukewarm milk 150 g butter 150 g sugar 50 g lard 1/8 l whipping cream a good pinch of salt, cardamom, allspice and cinnamon 100 g golden raisins 50 g currants 80 g candied orange peel, cut into small dice 80 g candied lemon peel, cut into small dice flour for forming the dough butter for greasing the sheet 150 g butter 3 tbs. sugar 100 g confectioner sugar Knead together all ingredients for the filling. Sieve the flour into a bowl, make a hollow in the middle of the flour and give into this hollow the yeast broken into small pieces. Add to the yeast a little of the sugar, some milk and a little of the surrounding flour. Cover the whole affair with a towel and let the yeast proof for about 15 minutes. Dissolve butter and lard in the remaining milk and let cool down until handwarm. Add this mixture plus all other ingredients (except the raisins and currants) to the dough, knead very well, give the dough into a bowl, cover it with a towel and let it proof at a warm place until the dough has gained double size. Wash raisins and currants, dry them with a towel and knead them under the risen dough. Roll out the dough by means of a rolling pin to a rectangular size, leaving one of the long sides a little thicker. Make a long roll of the almond paste matching about the length of the rectangle and place it in the middle of the dough. Now fold the thicker part of the dough over the almond paste roll and press together with your hands the seams of the dough. Use the side of your hand to press the dough to the almond paste roll. Place the Stollen on a well greased baking sheet and let it proof for another hour. Preheat the oven to 300 F. Bake the Stollen in the lower part of the oven for about 60 to 70 minutes. Ten minutes before the end of the baking brush the Stollen frequently with the butter, adding sugar afterwards. When the Stollen is done, sieve the confectioner sugar over it while the Stollen is still warm so that it will stick to the sugar-butter layer. After cooling off, the Stollen should be wrapped into cellophane paper. Close both ends of the paper with red ribbons to let it look nice for X-mas. Let it rest for at least four weeks before eating it. Store it in a cool and dry place (not in the fridge). (I hope you have a kitchen scale, if not, I could convert our metric measures into US ones)