This fruit bread is a traditional delicacy prepared in Christmas time
The Zelten, also known as Christmas bread, is a typical pastry eaten in Advent and at Christmas time. In the past, this special fruit bread was baked on December 21st. It then had to be left to ‘infuse’ properly and was cut on January 6th, Epiphany. The Zelten was usually given by farmers as a gift to their servants.
Those who still make it today do so before or during Advent. Below you can find one of the many recipes, some of which are guarded as carefully and secretly as a treasure. We wish you great success!
8 loaves of 250 g each:
600 g dried figs
250 g sultanas
100 g candied fruit
per loaf 100 g hazelnuts, walnuts and peeled almonds
50 g pine nuts
1/8 l dry South Tyrolean red wine
70 g South Tyrolean honey
2 tbsp rum
1 natural orange
1 level teaspoon cinnamon
each 1/8 teaspoon clove (powder) and nutmeg
For the bread dough:
each 1/8 teaspoon anise and fennel
125 g wholemeal rye flour
75 g wheat flour
1 dash of salt
20 g fresh yeast
1 teaspoon South Tyrolean honey
Frosting:
70 g sugar
Almonds, walnuts and candies fruit (cherries)
Cut dried figs, sultanas and candied fruits. Hackle nuts and pine nuts, shuffle with the fruits in a bowl.
Heat wine with honey until honey becomes liquid. Add rum and fruits, cover with a plate and allow to infuse overnight.
The day after toast anise and fennel and grind them. Add the flour and salt and put all the dough in a bowl. Mask the yeast and add 140 ml warm water and honey. Add it to the flour dough and knead together this mass to a dough. Cover with a cloth for one hour in a rather warm place.
Wash and dry the orange, grate the skin and add it, together with the spices and the fruit-nut-dough and knead it together in order to form a homogeneous dough.
Preheat the oven on 160° C (top and bottom heat, no air circulation). Put a baking paper on a baking plate and split the dough into 8 loaves. Form balls and press them flat (ca. 2 cm).
Put the loaves on the baking tray and decorate them with almonds, nuts and candied fruit. Other traditional shapes are rectangular, square, heart-shaped and moon-shaped Zelten.
Stir sugar and 4 tablespoons of hot water. Dab the loaves with this frosting and bake them in the oven for about 45 minute. Dab repeatedly with sugar water. Allow the Zelten to cool, then wrap them individually in cling film and leave to rest for up to 2 weeks before cutting.
