Wonderful lights, hot mulled wine, hearty fruit bread – you can definitely enjoy the advent season. Even if, in addition to the perfectly moon-shaped vanilla biscuits, the neatly layered dominoes and numerous glossy angel eyes, the fruit bread initially seems rather simple, the diverse content quickly creates enthusiasm.
The spicy Christmas body also has many names: Kletzenbrot, Hutzelbrot, Pirnbrot, Birrebrot or the fruit bread we are familiar with. However, the same is behind all the variants: pears! “Kletzen” are pears dried with their peel, which have already become doughy, soft and sweet and traditionally dried in the after-heat of the oven and thus kept for the winter. “Hutzeln”, which translates as shrinking, are rather finer dried pears that were peeled before drying. Filling variants such as in our bread with more Mediterranean fruits such as dates, cranberries, apricots and plums were introduced much later, just like the figs and raisins, which are also very popular as a filling.
The bread was always baked around the Andreastag (November 30th), the official beginning of the “Klöpflenächte”, where young, mask-wearing men begged with gifts, which usually consisted of fruit bread and poems. Today’s advent darling was only eaten on Christmas Eve after the house father had cut it and distributed it. In addition, cutting the bread was part of the engagement for many years: While a smooth cut stood for confirmation from the woman, the end of the relationship was signaled with a rough cut edge.
Become curious, but have never made fruit bread yourself? Then it is high time, because fruit bread is so simple: bake bread dough with honey and whole fruits and nuts – done. Depending on your taste, in addition to the classic pears, plums, cranberries, raisins, apricots, dates or figs also come into our breads. The nuts can also be exchanged and varied depending on supplies, favorites or allergies. If you belong to the rare species of orange-lemon-lovers – no problem, just use it for your own variant.
Recipe for fruit bread with Spekuklatius spice
(Box shape approx. 28 cm)
- 200 g flour (gladly also gluten-free e.g. whole grain rice flour)
- 1/2 packet of baking powder
- 150 g honey
- 4 eggs
- 600 g mixed dried fruit (e.g. cranberries, plums, dates, apricots)
- 100 g walnuts
- 1/2 sachet of speculoos spice
Preheat the oven to 170 ° C. Grease the tin with butter and dust the flour. Roughly chop nuts and dried fruit and mix. Stir the eggs until frothy and gradually add the honey. Then mix the flour, baking powder and Spekulatius spice and stir into the egg mixture. Then stir in the dried fruits and nuts well, spread the dough in the tin, smooth out and bake for 50 minutes.
Let the fruit bread cool and pack it in aluminum foil.
Even if everything is usually crushed to the last crumb on the same day, after 2 days the bread only develops its full taste potential. Some even swear by weeks of storage before eating!
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