Monday, December 6, 2010
Largest Stollen: Dresden Giant Stollen set world record DRESDEN, Germany--The German city of Dresden celebrated the start of the Christmas season by parading a giant Stollen through the streets of the baroque old town; the one baked for the 7th Dresden Stollen Festival, exactly 4,200 kilos in weight, sets the new world record for the Largest Stollen.
Photo by: Bakers and assistants assemble a giant stollen cake from about 250 individual pieces in Dresden, Germany. AP Photo/Matthias Rietschel (enlarge photo)
People enjoying a slice of the cake even do so for a good cause as the money for their slice goes to charity.
A Stollen is a loaf-shaped cake containing dried fruit, and covered with sugar, powdered sugar or icing. The cake is usually made with chopped candied fruit and/or dried fruit, nuts and spices. Stollen is a traditional German cake, usually eaten during the Christmas season, when called Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen.
Ingredients of the
world’s biggest Stollen
(rounded figures):
The World's Largest Stollen consists of many single plates (Stollen plates) which are joined by means of butter and sugar. Every year, in November, more than 60 ovens are burning for three weeks in order to bake the stollen plates. About 370 handmade plates, each 11 kilos in weight, have to be produced according to secret recipes of the respective bakers until they are joined together directly on the huge stollen wagon on the weekend before the festivity.
For many weeks, between 1993 and 1994, Prof. Kurt Merker was calculating, drafting, and modeling in an old factory shed in the Berholt-Brecht-Avenue in order to realize the idea of the Stollen-Festival-inventor Peter Mutscheller and to present a Giant Stollen at the 1st Dresden Stollen Festival.
Up to now, the pensioner Prof. Kurt Merker has helped to build up the Giant Stollen and has participated in every Dresden Stollen Festival. For that reason, Dresden`s bakers and pastry-chefs have lovingly nicknamed him the "Stollen professor".
The tradition of baking Christmas Stollen in Dresden is very old. Christmas Stollen in Dresden was already baked in the 15th century.
With the world`s biggest stollen of the 1st Dresden Stollen Festival, Dresden`s bakers and pastry-cooks achieved an entry in the Guiness Book of Records. At that time, the giant Christmas cake weighed 2,720 kilos.
In the meantime, the Guinness world record of 1994 has been beaten several times. The stollen of the 7th Dresden Stollen Festival, exactly 4,200 kilos in weight, holds the record.
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exactly 4,200 kilos in weight, sets the new world record for the 
