Delicious spelt bread: The baking tip for the Christmas season from Albert Senior!

Christmas baking begins with Advent in the Schwaighofer family from ADLER RESORT. We don't bake too many Christmas cookies, but Albert Senior is an enthusiastic bread baker. And he can often be found in front of the oven during the Christmas season - baking his almost famous Kletzen bread. To make sure you also get something out of it, Albert Senior will reveal his special and really delicious spelt bread recipe here.

Kletzen bread - one of the oldest bakery products in Austria

Kletzenbrot, a typical traditional pastry, especially during the Christmas season, has far-reaching historical roots. The Celts already mixed all kinds of dried fruits with their bread dough. Today many different varieties of Kletzen bread are baked in Austria and southern Germany. However, one thing is the same everywhere: the fruit content is always higher than the flour content.

"Kletzen bread" - where does the special name come from?

Kletzen are dried cider pears. The custom of drying pears, apples or plums for winter storage is very old. Larger farms even had their own “Darrhüttn” (drying huts) at that time. There was a small oven with a frame with a base of loosely braided rods inserted over the dome of the oven. So, the heat could come from all sides to the fruits distributed there. The origin of the word "Kletze" can be found in the Middle High German term “kloezen” which means "to split", because the pears used to be divided for drying.

Something symbolic from the bakery

Kletzen bread as a traditional pastry in the Advent and Christmas season symbolizes fertility and is still seen today as a lucky charm. Baking Kletzen bread usually begins around St. Andrew's Day, November the 30th. The bread is cut on Christmas Eve or St. Stephen's Day. Distributed by the housefather, everyone - the children, the servants and maidservants - each received a piece at that time. In order to bring luck to the stable, even the animals received Kletzen bread as a "gift for the mouth".

For Christmas baking in your kitchen we would now like to give you the family recipe of Albert Senior from ADLER RESORT. Have fun trying it out!

That's what you need:

• 500 g spelt grain
• 250 g dried figs (organic)
• 250 g dried apricots (organic)
• 100 g raisins
• 100g nut mix
• approx. 20 g dried orange and lemon peel (abrasion of organic fruits)
• a pinch of bread spice, aniseed, fennel, caraway, salt, respectively
• shot of rum
• shot of maple syrup
• dry yeast
• 400ml lukewarm water
• piece of alpine butter

That's how it works:

• Grind the spelt grain to flour.
• Mix spelt flour with yeast and salt in a mixer and slowly add 400 ml lukewarm water.
• Knead the dough well, cover it, keep it warm and leave it to rise for 30 minutes.
• Separate the dried fruits and mix them with nuts and spices. Add rum and maple syrup and leave to soak for 30 minutes.
• Knead the dough and fruits well in the machine, put them into a greased baking tin and bake in the oven for 60 minutes at 185 degrees!
• Melt the butter and, just before the end of the baking time, spread the Kletzen bread well and finish baking with top heat.

Enjoy the taste! The ADLER RESORT and the Schwaighofer family wish you a good appetite and a pleasant Advent season.