This one is wonderful. I make it every Christmas Eve and we have it for breakfast Christmas morning. It's based on Paula Peck's recipe.

Dresden Stollen

Rich Sour Cream Dough:

2 packages yeast
1/2 cup sugar
1teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk, scalded and cooled
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg yolks
5 Â 6 cups flour
1 cup (2 sticks) softened unsalted butter

Dissolve the yeast in about 1/4 cup water. Combine all the wet stuff (not the butter). Add enough flour to make a medium-firm dough. Beat in the butter. Knead about 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
Put in a buttered bowl, covered, in the refrigerator for at least four hours before using. [I often shorten or even skip this. ItÂs a trade-off  chilling makes it easier to work in the sense of less sticky, but much harder to work in the fruit. All this depends on how firm youÂve made the dough  you donÂt want too much flour or it wonÂt be coffee-cake-like, but too little and the butter and sour cream will make it very hard to work. I should mention that I have changed the original recipe by leaving out an additional stick of butter.]
If you donÂt chill it, do let it rise before kneading in the fruit. Sometimes I chill it, then get out and let it warm up and rise a bit more.
It will rise in the refrigerator; keep it from over-rising by punching it down, and youÂll be able to keep it a couple of days, supposedly.

The Stollen:

1 cup white sultana raisins
3/4 cup currants
1 to 1 1/4 cups diced candied apricots
1/4 cup cognac
1/2 cup blanched, sliced, lightly toasted almonds
Rich Sour Cream Dough
melted unsalted butter
powdered vanilla sugar

Mix fruit with cognac. Let stand at least one hour. Drain if thereÂs any excess liquid.
Knead fruit and almonds into dough.
Cut dough in half. Roll each piece into an oval. Fold almost but not quite in half lengthwise. Lightly roll the folded dough with a rolling pin. Place well apart on a large buttered baking sheet. Let rise until not quite doubled. Brush gently with melted butter.

Bake at 375 [or 350  I havenÂt decided which is best, really  I use 350 more often, I think] Bake about 45 minutes, says the recipe, but start checking long before that. There are so many variables here, shape, density, etc.
Brush again with butter while still warm. [I donÂt do this any more. Enough is enough.]
Then brush after they cool. [Ditto. Paula Peck died of a heart attack, as you can imagine from this recipe.]
Dust the cooled stollen heavily with vanilla sugar. Wrap in foil.
Dust again before serving, in thin slices.

Late in saying "thank you", but appreciate your help, and the recipe sounds wonderful.

I'm going to have to try this recipe, it sounds great.

Thanks CC for posting it.

Nancy

You're welcome. The candied apricots are the big improvement over the original recipe, which used mixed candied fruit. The Australian candied apricots actually taste like apricots.