Every Christmas, our pastry chefs become busy making special cakes for the festive season. Our authentic, rather simple-looking Christmas stollen, made following the recipe of Hartmut Keitel, our former German chief pastry chef, has been a perennial favorite among our customers since our opening. The stollen is a traditional German bread-like cake eaten during the Advent* season.
Chief chef Keitel made his name as “an artist of confectionary” and this German master’s stollen recipe has been carefully shared and passed down for over a half century. At the time of our opening, the chief executive chef was Paul Müller, also of Germany. He introduced his western culinary skills to a newly opened Keio Plaza Hotel. In this fashion, we can proudly say that our stollen has been created by these two German specialists.
The stollen contains dried fruits soaked in rum, nuts, spices and marzipan, and is baked in the oven. The stollen is then smeared in butter in order to keep it moist. The entire process takes ten days: from kneading the dough, baking, cooling it down and rolling the cake in sugar. As a result, the stollen is quite heavy for its size.
It is said to be a custom to eat a slice each day with family and friends, while waiting for Christmas Day to arrive
As the days go by, the blend of different ingredients inside the cake enriches its taste.
Our traditional genuine Christmas stollen will be out around the first 10 days of November. Please enjoy our special delight only available during the Christmas season.
*Advent・・・Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas (always falling between 27 November and 3 December), and ends on Christmas Eve on 24 December
