Gletzenbrod

I was looking through photos of a Party in the kitchen in Erlangen, and saw a recipe for a christmas fruit bread in the background. I baked this bread for christmas, but then lost the recipe. The resolution was just good enough to figure out the words, so I decided to bake one. The recipe came from my flatmate Martin's mum who lives in Zwiesl. The name should actually be written "Kletzenbrot", meaning "dried pear bread", but in Zwiesel the pronunciation is more like "Gletzenbrod". It is most nutricious and tastes even better when buttered.

This recipe involves soaking things overnight!

Ingredients

For the dough:

500g flour,
150g sugar,
1 packet of yeast.

For the fruit:
500g dried pears
500g dried plums
A few dried figs
Some nuts
Raisins/sultanas
Candied fruit peel
Cinnamon
Cloves

This list is quite flexible, but the dried pears must be included. A rule of thumb is to make sure you have more fruity stuff than dough.

Procedure

1/ Soak the dried pears in sugar water overnight. Don't throw the water away until the very end!

2/ Get a good night's sleep.

3/ Get out of bed, then make the dough using the flour, sugar, yeast and pear water. The dough should be firm and give the impression that it could hold a bread-like form in the near future. Leave to stand and ferment a little.

4/ Chop up the dried fruit and nuts etc. In the meantime the dough should have risen slightly. If it hasn't, convince yourself that it has.

5/ Set the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

6/ Knead the fruity stuff and spices into the dough. Make two (or more, or less if you wish) loaves on a baking tray, coat with pear water and bake until done (about an hour, but it never hurts to look before).

7/ Tip the pear water away.

Here are some alternative recipes for Kletzenbrote (in German).