Our 10 best chocolate recipes

The ultimate chocolate chip cookies
These are the cookies that appeared in the July 9, 2008 edition of the New York Times: the very same cookies that set off an explosion of baking across the globe to see if, indeed, they are the perfect specimen. The consensus is: yes, they are.
Makes 18
240g plain flour
240g strong white flour
1¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1½ tsp baking powder
1½ tsp salt
280g unsalted butter, at room temperature
285g light brown sugar
225g caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
565g dark chocolate discs (at least 60% cacao content)
Sea salt
1 Sift the flours, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
2 Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars together until very light – about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
3 Stir in the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low, add the dry ingredients and mix gently until combined – just 5 to 10 seconds. Drop the chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Wrap clingfilm around the dough and refrigerate for 24-36 hours (the closer to 36 the better.) The dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
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4 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
5 Scoop six mounds of dough, the size of generous golf balls, on to the baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up: it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft – 18-20 minutes. You’ll know the cookies are done when the tops have the caramel folds of a Shar Pei. Transfer the sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip the cookies on to another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with the remaining dough, or reserve doughit, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm.
David Leite, LCcooks.com
Prague cake
A deeply, darkly, densely chocolatey affair, this take on the Austrian sachertorte should be enjoyed in generous wedges with a large glass of milk.
Serves 10
5 medium eggs, cold
150g sugar
80g butter, melted but cooled a little
30g cocoa
170g flour
70ml Tia Maria
For the cream filling
4 egg yolks
4 tbsp water
1 tbsp cocoa powder
200g salted butter, softened
250g condensed milk
For the ganache
200g dark chocolate (70%), finely chopped
60g butter
1 Beat the eggs and sugar together with an electric mixer until very foamy. Pour the butter in and then gently fold in the flour with a spatula.
2 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and prepare a 24cm tin with a removable base by buttering it or lining it with baking parchment. Pour the batter gently into the tin and bake for 25 minutes. Test it by gently touching the top – if it springs right back, it’s done. Turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven to cool, with the door open.
3 When cool, slice the cake horizontally into two discs and drizzle both discs with the Tia Maria.
4 Next make the cream. Heat the egg yolks and water in a glass bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk it constantly until the yolks turn foamy and thick. Then stir in the cocoa powder and remove from the heat.
5 Beat the butter with an electric mixer and, when it starts to foam, trickle in the condensed milk. Then gently fold in the cooled yolk mixture.
6 To make the ganache, pop the chocolate and butter into a glass bowl and set it over a pan of simmering water. Do not disturb it too much or it will go grainy. Let it melt slowly, then give it a gentle stir once it looks almost melted.
7 Meanwhile, spread the condensed milk cream inbetween the sponge and then spread the chocolate ganache on top and down the sides of the cake.
Olia Hercules, oliahercules.com
Chocolate madeleines with a fudgy chocolate dip
Madeleines are delightful little tea cakes, best served fresh and warm from the oven. The double chocolate here makes for a special kind of teatime treat. To achieve the desired lightness, don’t overwork the batter.
Makes 12
For the madeleines
95g unsalted butter
60g flour
20g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
2 large eggs
70g caster sugar
15g honey
For the fudgy chocolate dip
200ml double cream
3 tbsp dulce de leche
200g dark chocolate (70%), finely chopped

1 Gently melt the butter. Use 1 tbsp to generously butter a 12-cup madeleine tin, then put the tin in the fridge.
2 Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
3 Whisk the eggs, sugar and honey with an electric hand whisk for 2 minutes, until light in colour and doubled in size. Using a spatula, delicately incorporate half the cocoa-flour mix and half the butter, mixing gently without overworking the batter. Repeat with the remaining cocoa flour and butter. Let the batter sit in the fridge for one hour. You can make the batter the day before but the madeleines will be lighter if the batter rests for just one hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7.
4 Divide the batter between the 12 madeleine holes. Bake for 8-10 minutes depending on your oven. Turn out on to a wire rack upside down and leave to cool while you make the dipping sauce.
5 Heat the double cream and dulce de leche until just simmering and well combined. Put the chopped chocolate in a bowl and pour the hot cream over the top. Leave for a minute then whisk until well blended.
6 Serve while the madeleines and the dip are warm. Any leftover sauce will be delicious on vanilla ice-cream.
Valérie Berry, valerieberry.com
Bitter chocolate, sea salt and extra-virgin olive oil ganacha with crostini
A big bowl of seriously bitter molten chocolate with crisp, salty olive-oil toasts for dippers … an extravagance of bold flavours that will definitively banish any naff chocolate fondue experience you may have had. Use a nice fruity olive oil if you can – it works wonders.
Serves 4
180g dark chocolate (70%)
80g caster sugar
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
250ml double cream
30ml extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for the crostini and finishing
½ tsp flaky sea salt, plus extra for the crostini and finishing
1 small ciabatta
1 Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and remove from the heat. Whisk the cream to form soft peaks.
2 Next make a sugar syrup by putting the sugar in a small saucepan with a splash of water and boiling it over a high heat until the sugar dissolves.
3 Put the yolks and eggs in a mixing bowl and whisk rapidly, gradually pouring in the sugar syrup (an electric whisk is good for this). The eggs should be light, fluffy and airy. Fold this mix into the chocolate and then fold in the whipped cream. Finally stir in the sea salt and the olive oil and rest the mixture, covered, in a cool area – but not the fridge.
4 Slice the ciabatta into thin rounds and then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and grill until lightly browned and crisp.
5 Serve the ganache at room temperature drizzled with more olive oil and sprinkled with extra salt for crunch alongside the warm crostini.
Ben Tish, saltyard.co.uk
Rusty Road
Honeycomb, cranberries and peanuts embedded in thick dark chocolate ganache – a perfect homemade chunk of fruit and nut.
Rusty road: dark chocolate fruit and nut with a honeycomb crunch
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Rusty road: dark chocolate fruit and nut with a honeycomb crunch Photograph: Yuki Sugiura for the Guardian
Makes 16 squares
For the rusty road
280g dark chocolate (70%)
250ml double cream
150g dried cranberries
75g raisins
75g dark chocolate buttons
75g white chocolate buttons
150g lightly salted, roasted peanuts
For the honeycomb
200g white sugar
50g honey
A splash of water
10g bicarbonate of soda
1 First make the honeycomb. Put the sugar, honey and a splash of water in a heavy-based saucepan. Slowly bring it to the boil. Take it off the heat just before it turns caramel in colour. Allow it to cool ever so slightly.
2 Add the bicarbonate of soda. Whisk a couple of times then quickly (but carefully) pour and spread it out on to a lined baking sheet using a silicone spatula. Set aside to cool completely. This makes more than the 150g you need – store the rest in an airtight container at room temperature for 4-5 days.
3 For the rusty road, put the dark chocolate in a large mixing bowl. Put the double cream in a pan and bring to a boil. Then pour this over the chocolate and mix well, until the chocolate is melted and fully incorporated into the cream. Set aside until near room temperature. Meanwhile, break 150g of the honeycomb into 1-2cm chunks.
4 Once the ganache has come down in temperature throw in all the other ingredients and fold well so that everything gets coated well. Pour into an medium-size, square, lined tray and put in the fridge until cool.
5 Once cool slice into 16 chunks or bites.
Alex Bluett, friskafood.com
Dark chocolate and prune tart with hazelnut pastry
This tart is worth every smidgen of the high percentage cocoa solids that go into it. Crisp nutty pastry, a moussey bitter-chocolate middle and dark chewy prunes.
Makes 1 large tart
100g ground hazelnuts
200g plain flour
A pinch of salt
225g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
60ml ice-cold water
For the filling
600ml double cream
300g dark chocolate (70%), broken into pieces
75g unsalted butter
50g muscovado sugar
5 egg yolks
100g pitted prunes
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 For the pastry, whizz together the hazelnuts, flour and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and whizz again until you have a coarse knobbly texture. Sprinkle over the ice-cold water and pulse again until the dough comes together. The dough should not be too wet but if it seems too dry, add another tablespoon or two of water. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2 Stand for 15 minutes at room temperature before rolling out to a 3mm thick disc using it to line a 28cm flan tin. Prick the base and refrigerate for a further 30 minutes.
3 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Line the pastry shell with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans and blind bake for 20 minutes, before removing beads and greaseproof paper and baking it for another 10 minutes.
4 For the filling, put the cream, chocolate, butter and sugar in a heatproof bowl balanced over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate melts and mixture is smooth and silky.
5 In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then add a quarter of the chocolate mixture and whisk to combine. Add the remaining chocolate and stir gently until well mixed.
6 Reduce the oven temperature to 150C/300F/ gas mark 2. Scatter the prunes over the tart base and pop on the oven shelf. Pour the chocolate mixture over and bake for 25 minutes – the tart should be just set.
7 Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature. Dust with cocoa powder and serve with cream if desired.
Ravinder Bhogal

Chocolate peanut milkshake
A drinkable demonstration of how a whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. This works brilliantly with nut or grain milks too.
Chocolate peanut butter milkshakes.
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Nuts about milkshakes: drinkable double-chocolate peanut-butter heaven. Photograph: Yuki Sugiura for the Guardian
Serves 4
200g dark chocolate, melted and cooled
4 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 litre milk
500g chocolate ice-cream
1 Put the melted chocolate, peanut butter, maple syrup and milk into a blender and mix until completely smooth. Add a couple of scoops of ice-cream to 4 tall glasses and pour the chocolate milkshake over. Serve immediately with a spoon and a straw.
Rosie Reynolds, rosiereynolds.co.uk
Chocolate and hazelnut spread
Homemade Nutella: what’s not to like? Best enjoyed on warm, buttered toast first thing in the morning, or by itself with a spoon late at night.
Makes 2 340g jars
400ml double cream
½ vanilla pod, split in half down the middle
4 tbsp runny honey
100g blanched hazelnuts
4 tbsp water
200g dark chocolate
50g unsalted butter
A pinch of salt
1 Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. n a small pan, gently warm the double cream, vanilla and honey over a low heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2 Line a baking tray with baking parchment and roast the hazelnuts for about 5 minutes, or until golden brown. When they are ready, remove to cool. Switch the oven off. Now is a good opportunity to put the jam jars and lids in the oven to sterilise.
3 Put the chocolate pieces in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. Stir until smooth. Add the butter and sprinkle in a pinch of salt. Stir to mix fully. Remove from the heat.
4 Once the hazelnuts have cooled, transfer to a food processor and blend into a smooth paste. For people who prefer crunch, blend to your desired texture, but you will have to mix the rest of the ingredients by hand or with a mixing attachment on your food processor.
5 Combine all the ingredients in a bowl or food processor and blend or mix until completely smooth. While the mixture is warm, it will resemble a thick fudge sauce, but will eventually cool to a spread consistency.
6 Pour into jars, secure the lids firmly and allow to cool. Store in a dark, cool place.
Concepta Cassar, purepabulum.wordpress.com
Crumbled roasted white chocolate
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Simple but effective: roasted white chocolate pairs beautifully with sharp fruit or tangy, smooth yoghurt. Photograph: Yuki Sugiura for the Guardian
Roasted white chocolate
This is perfect served with anything sharp – roasted rhubarb, early raspberries or strawberries – or sprinkled over a panna cotta, or even just stirred through yoghurt.
200g white chocolate, broken into small chunks
1 Set the oven to 160C/325F/gas mark 3. Scatter the chocolate chunks on a nonstick baking sheet in the oven. As the chocolate roasts, it will first melt, then begin to separate, then go gravelly. It looks quite bizarre, but don’t worry – just keep gently stirring it every 6-8 minutes until it is a nice, deep golden caramel colour (about 15-20 minutes).
2 Remove from the oven and allow to cool. It will have the texture of firm crumble.
Nicholas Balfe, salonbrixton.co.uk

Whisky chocolate pots
These might seem small, but they are perfectly formed and a little goes a long way here. Try replacing the whisky with dark rum, amaretto, or any other liqueur that marries well with chocolate.
Serves 2
140ml double cream
60g dark chocolate
A pinch of salt
3 tbsp whisky
Zest of 1 orange
1 Pour the cream into a small pan and heat gently. Meanwhile, break the chocolate into pieces (whacking it, still tightly wrapped, against the kitchen counter generally does the trick).
2 When the cream begins to simmer, remove it from the heat, add the chocolate, and stir until melted. When the mixture is smooth, stir in a pinch of salt and the whisky.
3 Divide the mixture between two ramekins, and chill for at least 2 hours, until set. Top with orange zest.
Felicity Cloake, Perfect Host (Penguin/Fig Tree)

Which wine should you drink with grasshopper on toast?

There’s an inherent wriggliness to a worm that stays with it long after it has been fried and prepared as the main ingredient in a mealworm taco, for example. Give the plate a slight nudge and everything moves – it’s like looking into an angler’s bait bucket.


Eating insects has become common enough that the chains are experimenting with putting them on the menu, so it was only a matter of time before the wine matchers wanted in on the act. I’m at London’s Vinopolis where Beth Willard, buyer for wine merchants Laithwaite’s has chosen wines which she thinks will best complement the flavours of mealworms, grasshoppers, crickets and queen weaver ants. We’re trying cricket pad thai, Mexican grasshoppers on toast, a frangipane of pear, cinnamon and queen weaver ant, and that vermicular taco.
There’s nothing strange about eating insects. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that some 1,400 species are eaten as part of a staple diet across Africa, Asia and South America. There are four main groups: beetles; ants, bees and wasps; grasshoppers and crickets; and moths and butterflies. Add arachnids to that: tarantulas are popular in Cambodia – fried, they have the flavour of crab (unsurprisingly since they’re from the same family) and scorpions (again, with that fishy flavour) are big in China. In Thailand, crickets are served as bar snacks, the South Africans eat the caterpillar of the mopani moth, giant steamed water bugs are eaten all over south-east Asia, they eat termites in Ghana, the Japanese like silkworms. The list goes on.
Insects are reckoned to pack more protein per gram than fresh meat and some fish, they are rich in fat and important minerals, and farming them uses a fraction of the resources used in raising other livestock. As well as their nutritional value, the FAO says, there is “considerable potential for edible insects to provide income and jobs for rural people who capture, rear, process, transport and market the insects” and notes their variety, sold live, dried, smoked, roasted or in some other form.
Raising insects for food is an industry worth $20m in the US alone, and there are several companies in this country doing very nicely. “We sell to primary schools, outdoor activity centres, pubs, leisure parks such Alton Towers – and the clergy, who like to use locusts in their sermons on John the Baptist,” Nick Cooper, owner of Crunchy Critters, which provided today’s bugs, says. Halloween’s big for them, as is the annual new series of I’m a Celebrity … indicating a market that is more interested in highjinks than thinking of insects as a serious alternative food source. Cooper says his demographic is young men between 25 and 30, living in the south east of England. Oxfordshire is his biggest market, for reasons he can’t fathom.
There are so many good reasons to eat insects, and there’s no reason why I should be squeamish. I’ve been eating snails and molluscs since I was in short trousers, I love frogs’ legs, devour cheeses of miasmal pungency. I’m not put off by exoskeletons, I’ve eaten guinea pig, sea slug and cold calves’ brains. Why should I balk at a cricket? I think somewhere, I still associate insects with decay. But counter-intuitively on the point of freshness, that presents another hurdle. I have a disconcerting squishiness. I swear I just saw one move.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2013/sep/13/eating-insects-infographic-flies-entomophagy
Anyway, enough. In they go. Once I’ve got a mouthful of crickets, the taste is pleasantly mild and nutty, although the wings get caught in my teeth. But the overall experience could at best be characterised as disagreeable. why should a beetle larva cause me such distress? I think, in the end, it’s texture. I’ll just never get used to the powdery crunch of those cricket wings.
Cricket pad thai
The Pad Thai was made with rice noodles, bean sprouts, sautéed peanuts, spring onions and lime. The crickets themselves, half an inch long and readily identifiable, have a brittle crunch leading to chewiness as you bite through the body. Delicate flavour of hazelnuts with a hint of seafood. The cricket disintegrates in your mouth and leaves you exploring every cavity for remnants of wing and thorax. You need a very light, aromatic wine: the best match was the fragrant Cabrito Albillo 2012 from Madrid.
Mealworm tacos
Beetle larva, fried or roasted, is a best-seller for Crunchy Critters. Challenging to look at but the smell is pleasantly like root vegetables just pulled from the ground. Once on the tongue the flavour is unexceptional, slightly musty and earthy – it reminds me of parsnip crisps. The texture is hollow and friable, like a mouthful of dried scales. Comtesse de Bellefleur Grande Réserve Champagne worked well, its yeasty aromatics complementing the mustiness, but the best match again was the Albillo.
Chapulines (Mexican grasshoppers) on toast
For the first time I really feel the flavour. After the now-familiar exoskeletal chomp, an umami saltiness, a bit like miso, with notes of porcini mushrooms. The texture is far meatier than the crickets. There’s a salty aftertaste as well, and walnut-juice dryness. Exotic and foreign, the strong flavours overwhelm the aromatic whites but Gutierrez Colosia Fino NV with its concentrated nuttiness, and top notes of salted lime, is the perfect foil. Beth says she really feels like she’s eating salted tapas in the south of Spain.
Frangipane of pear, cinnamon and queen weaver ant
It looks like a mini pecan pie but the pecans are crushed ants, head, thorax and abdomen discernible. I haven’t seen an ant in such exploded detail since O Level biology. I’m afraid it just doesn’t work. It’s not sweet enough and between your teeth the ants release flavours of goat and sty, and a fine tang of faintly scented urine. Apparently ants are used mainly as a savoury topping and not a main ingredient, which makes sense. The champagne works really well again, mitigating the pungency, but the powerful flavours strip all the other wines of their fruit. Challenging, though the queen weaver is considered a delicacy.

Bread and ginger: white chocolate stollen and lebkuchen recipes

Ginger is one of the few ingredients that is good in all its forms: sticky stem ginger, ground ginger, fiery fresh ginger, ginger in chewy, sugared chunks or candied in syrup to a mild sweet warmth. Though each has a slightly different flavour – some hotter, others more muted – they’re all perfect to bake with. Typically, I’d add a heap of grated ginger to cakes batters, whereas drier biscuit and pastry mixes work better with the ground stuff. In bread, which relies on sensitive yeast for its rise, it’s best to use chunks of sweetened ginger distributed through the dough.
Lebkuchen

These are a gentler alternative to the tooth-cracking gingerbread shapes – brittle biscuit, rock hard royal icing – so plentiful at this time of year. Lebkuchen are rich, soft and sweet, spiced and mistily glazed. Because these spread and rise as they bake, you won’t be able to roll and cut the dough into fancy shapes, but who needs biscuits shaped like holly leaves, anyway? Ginger has a kick to it, but when combined with cinnamon and cloves, it yields a more complex flavour – fragrant, earthy and spicy. It’s a trio that tastes of the essence of Christmas.
Makes 20-24
120g unsalted butter, cubed
160g plain flour
100g ground almonds
90g soft light brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
4 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
A pinch of salt
2 large egg yolks
2 tbsp golden syrup
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To glaze
15-20ml water
100g icing sugar
1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and line a couple of baking trays with baking parchment.
2 Rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips until no visible pieces of butter remain. The mixture should look like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the ground almonds and sugar, followed by the baking powder, spices and salt.
3 In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together with the golden syrup, then pour this into the flour mixture. Mash the wet and dry ingredients together with a fork until you’re left with a smooth, slightly sticky dough.
3 Break off a conker-sized piece of dough and roll between your palms to produce a smooth ball. Place on the baking tray and flatten to a disc, roughly 1cm thick. Repeat with the remaining dough, spacing the biscuits a few centimetres apart on their trays.
4 Bake for 15 minutes, until risen, lightly browned and set. Swap oven shelves halfway through if not using a fan oven. The biscuits will be very soft when freshly baked, but will firm as they cool.
5 Glaze the biscuits while hot. Slowly whisk the water into the icing sugar until the mixture is smooth. Brush the glaze liberally over the biscuits and leave to cool completely on their trays.
Stem ginger and white chocolate stollen, and spicy lebkuchen.
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Stem ginger and white chocolate stollen (below), and spicy lebkuchen biscuits. Photograph: Jill Mead/Guardian

Stem ginger and white chocolate stollen
It’s easy enough to find a good, boozy Christmas pudding or a feathery pannetone in the shops, but I’m often left disappointed by stollen, at times too heavy or too light; bland or hyper-sweet. But when made at home, with a little patience and a watchful eye, stollen can be spectacular – rich with butter and egg, studded with chunks of ginger and sweet with zested marzipan.
This version sets hot ginger against the mellow sweetness of white chocolate, but you can mix and match flavours as you please. Dried fruit will yield a more traditional stollen, but you could also experiment with pistachios, dried sour cherries or dark chocolate chips.
For the dough
75g unsalted butter
275g strong white flour
7g instant dried yeast
25g caster sugar
½ tsp salt
110ml whole milk, lukewarm
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 2 lemons
150g stem ginger, roughly chopped
100g white chocolate, roughly chopped
Zest of 1 orange
200g marzipan
To finish
75g butter
50g icing sugar
1 Melt the butter over a low heat then set aside to cool slightly while you prepare the other ingredients. Combine the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Pour in the milk and melted butter, then add the egg, vanilla extract half the lemon zest.
2 Beat the mixture in the bowl to combine, then tip it out on to a clean work surface and knead for 10 minutes or so. It’ll start out very sticky, but thanks to the high proportion of butter, it should begin to feel silkier as you work it. Don’t worry if it doesn’t reach the smoothness or elasticity that you might expect from a normal bread dough.
3 After 10 minutes of kneading, add the stem ginger and white chocolate, and distribute the chunks through the dough using your hands. Return the dough to its bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise at room temperature until 1½–2 times its original size. This could take as little as one hour if your kitchen is warm and the yeast lively, but be prepared to wait up to two hours on cooler days.
4 Tip the risen dough from its bowl on to a well-floured surface and pat/stretch it out to a rectangle roughly 20 x 30cm. Mash the remaining lemon zest and orange zest into the marzipan, then use your hands to mould it into a rough 30cm-long log shape. Lay the marzipan across one of the long edges of the dough then roll the dough up around the marzipan to form a fat roll. Pat the roll down to a squat, flattened shape and pinch the ends to secure the marzipan inside.
5 Leave the shaped stollen to rise on a baking tray, loosely covered with clingfilm, for an hour or until the bread has increased in size by half. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
5 Bake the stollen for 40 minutes, until well-risen and golden brown.
6 Melt the remaining butter and brush liberally all over the still-hot stollen – both on top and underneath. (This is crucial for that characteristic tenderness, so don’t forgo the extravagance). Repeat until all the butter has been absorbed into the stollen’s crust. Dust generously with the icing sugar, then leave to cool completely. Serve in fat slices.