The handmade Stollen is one of the pastries with the longest tradition in Germany. The first documentary mention was dated back to anno 1330 in "Naumburg an der Saale".
200 Years later in Dresden, the Stollen is known as "Striezel". Even today the christmas fair in dresden is being called the "Striezelmarkt".
In former times, pastries were mostly shaped like christian symbols. The Stollen in it's original form represents the baby child jesus wrapped in diapers.
Other than the shape, the ingridients have changed over time. Those days, Stollen were meagre pastries for the catholic lent, only made of water, oats and carrot oil. Since that did not taste very well, the Saxonian cure prince asked the pope for a change of the recipe. His Holiness finally allowed the addition of butter in anno 1647.
As a result, the meagre stollen evolved into the rich pastry that we all know and love.

Bernd Kütscher has made a name as a Stollen expert. He has won the German Stollenbaker Contest four times and he delights his customers with creative variations of the original Stollen.