Why stollen won't toast

James Tytko asked baking expert Nicola Lamb to help find the answer. She's the author of 'SIFT: The Elements of Great Baking,' coming out this May...

Celia - Why does stollen go floppy in the toaster instead of crispy? We tried to toast our slices of stollen thinking it would be the Christmas equivalent of toasted hot cross buns, but instead of the crispy, toasted texture we were expecting, our slices became floppy and had to be removed from the toaster with tongs.

James - Thank you, Celia. Now for the uninitiated, this delicious German fruit bread contains marzipan and spices and is inextricably linked to the festive period. I asked culinary queen Nicola Lamb to help find out why Celia's leftover Christmas stollen might have gone sloppy in her toaster. She's the author of SIFT - The Elements of Great Baking, which comes out this May.

Nicola - Stollen is an enriched dough with a relatively high amount of mix-ins in the form of dried fruit and marzipan. So there's problem one. There's relatively less bread to toast.

James - When you toast bread, it undergoes the Maillard reaction, which is a chemical reaction between a reducing sugar and a protein present in the bread dough. The result is that lovely browning crisping effect.

Nicola - Stollen has almost doubled the amount of mix-ins to a dough compared to something like a hot cross bun. Some recipes are about 40% fruit in marzipan by weight. The lower proportion of bread combined with the high proportion of fat in the marzipan and butter in the dough itself will mean the stollen could soften rather than crisp up.

James - Another issue is moisture. The Maillard reaction cannot take place in the presence of water.

Nicola - Just think about the colour of boiled food versus roasted food. In the enclosed space of a toaster, the moisture from all those add-ins, think in particular the buttery steamy marzipan, might result in the stollen steaming rather than toasting.

James - There's just nowhere for the moisture to evaporate, further contributing to your soggy stollen.

Nicola - I expect the traditional powdery sugared crust in most stollen recipes could also be playing a role. I feel like everything matters in baking. It probably attracts quite a lot of moisture to the crust. Since sugar is so strongly hygroscopic, meaning it likes to absorb moisture from the air. In general, I think you'd be better off grilling your stollen, flipping it halfway. That way it has space for the moisture to evaporate and to allow the toasting to happen.

James - Many thanks to Nicola Lamb and be sure to look out for SIFT - the elements of great baking.