Christmas Stollen and Body Glide

Woohooo it’s almost Christmas!

Tomorrow Ben and me (with Alfie in tow) will be picking up Ben’s mum and driving the 15 minutes to my parent’s house mid-morning to celebrate the day-long eating extravaganza otherwise known as Christmas. I’ve been put in charge of vegetables (clearly my speciality) so I’ll be carting honey-marinating carrots and parsnips as well as Brussels’ sprouts, broad beans (OK, not entirely a Christmas thing but they’re my favourite veg and I’m in charge sooo…) and some vegetarian stuffing (Ben’s mum and me prefer the non-sausage mix stuff). All good in the hood.

We’ll also be taking the freshly iced Christmas cake…da da!

IMG_8870We used royal icing and just kind of swirled it on. We bought the snowmen to decorate. We’re not brilliant at decorating as you can probably tell…

And the stollen was made pretty much by Ben while I hovered about sneaking samples.

IMG_8873My German friend’s mum’s kindly gave me her stollen recipe as we had some of hers freshly baked when we were over in Berlin recently and it rocked my world. Well anything does that has marzipan in to be fair but this was especially good. We wanted a fruitless stollen to bring as my dad can’t have the Christmas cake because he can’t eat dried fruit (or rather, as he so delightfully puts it, it “goes straight through him”).

Here’s the Stollen recipe (all credit to Charlotte’s mum) if you’re interested:

Stollen

  • 500g plain flour (we had to sub for wholemeal as we didn’t have plain, whoops) 
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 150g caster sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 150g soft margarine
  • 250g quark
  • 100g chopped almonds
  • 200g marzipan (we might have significantly increased this to twice the amount)
  • To Dust: 30g margarine; 2 tbs. icing sugar

– Sieve flour and baking power into a bowl, add eggs, sugar, salt, margarine, almonds and quark. Knead into a soft dough and wrap in foil. Leave in fridge for 30 minutes.

– Roll out dough into a square (approx 30 x 40cm) on a sheet of lightly dusted baking paper.

– Thinly slice marzipan and lay out on the dough (alternatively sit the fat sausage-like wodge of marzipan on the dough depending how generous you were with the marzipan). Wrap the dough up from the sides to the middle and press together. Bake for 45 minutes at 175 degrees.

– Melt margarine and spread on warm Stollen and dust with icing sugar.

You can add different dried fruit or peel to the Stollen as well beforehand but like I said, we wanted ours to be more simplistic. Serve with jam, butter or cream cheese (highly recommended) or just eat plain! I think ours cracked quite a bit during baking because we used the stupid wholemeal flour but normal plain flour should be a lot better.

And lastly I have one more quick review for you. I was sent a Body Glide product from the  company to test out. Sadly I haven’t been able to test the specific product I was sent out with running but I have previously used this brand before when doing races or when it’s been particularly warm. And I have trialled out the product they sent with my new gym activities.

IMG_8871I’ve suffered many times with chafage and honest to god it’s no joke. Like blisters they are savage and can really affect how your run is going. When I wear sleeveless tops to run I really felt the chafe under my arms. Getting into the shower afterwards was beyond painful.

Arm chafe A slightly old photo of when I suffered from the dreaded chaffage

Body Glide is a company specialising in a range of anti-chafe balms to help athletes keep comfortable and avoid irritation. These particular balms are quite popular because they are non-greasy and very reliable as they can apparently survive all weather conditions. I can attest that it reliably survives a hot sunny day!

The Body Glide have a new range being introduced to the UK: 

  • Original Body Glide – the standard anti-chafe and blister balm
  • For Her – anti-chafing balm with effective skin moisturiser
  • Chamois Glide balm for cyclists
  • Foot Glide – blister resister specifically for feet.

And they do different sizes as well so you can take a little travel-sized one with you to use just before a race. I was sent the For Her product.

IMG_8872It was great – very easy to apply (like deodorant) and it wasn’t sticky or greasy. It didn’t smell of anything in particular either. It was also nice that it had a nice moisturising element to it. To be honest though, I wasn’t overly fussed about this and happily would have used the original. As long as I don’t chafe I don’t mind!

I’ve used the original body glide product before when running. I all but bathed in it before my marathons and happily had no rubbing issues during. Although I failed to realise I’d chafe on my lower back! Who’d have thought to have applied the glide there!?IMG_8158

So a big thumbs up! Anything to stop that dread burn in the shower or that horrible chaffing feeling while you’re running (and then end up running like a chicken as I had to do one race as the rubbing was so painful).

Anyway, a big merry Christmas to you all! Have a lovely day and eat lots of yummy food. I know I will be!

Do you do any Christmas-specific baking?

Do you chafe when you run? Or are prone to blisters? Nasty little buggers.

***Full Disclosure: I was sent the Body Glide product for free to review. All opinions are my own as always.***

12 Replies to “Christmas Stollen and Body Glide”

  1. Definitely bought the same little snowmen for my Christmas cake as you have!! And as Tom doesn’t do Christmas cake I’m making a red velvet #yumyum
    Feeling your chaffage pain – always under the upper arms like your pic … Will have to try the body glide …
    Karen recently posted…Different perspectives …My Profile

  2. Chafing is the bane of my life when it comes to running. I always thought it was because I have so much gross fat and chub under my arms, but you have none of that at all (quite the opposite), and I chafe in exactly the same place you do, so I guess even thin people must have trouble with it. I use a similar Body Glide product, but I think it’s a cheaper brand? It’s not great, so I’ll have to see if I can find some of your version because underarm (and thigh) chafing drives me nuts.

    Happy Xmas and have a fab day tomorrow – your snowman cake is just adorable and I think you’ve both done a fantastic job of making and decorating it 🙂

    xxx
    Jess recently posted…Posts That Piqued My Interest #1My Profile

  3. I use body glide around my sports bra as I find the straps really dig in otherwise, but for the rest of me I make sure there are some clothes (eg I wear capris so my legs don’t chafe, and the vests I wear go up to my armpits so there is no skin on skin rubbing).
    I love Christmas cake, and stollen- yum. That recipe sounds amazing. I made a stollen a few weeks ago but with wholemeal flour (I didn’t realise until I started that I had no white) and it was rather dense. I love the sound of the quark in this though, I bet the dough is much lighter.
    How lovely that you made it for you dad though- my Nan was like that, she could not have dried fruit.
    Have a lovely Christmas 🙂
    Maria @ runningcupcake recently posted…25 before ChristmasMy Profile

  4. Happy Christmas guys!
    Firstly, having just travelled for a good couple hours back to my parents for tomorrow I am very jealous of your fifteen minute journey!
    Secondly, I WILL be trying that Stollen recipe. Dan, my Mum and I are all dried fruit haters but I am very much a marzipan lover so that looks right up my street! Your Christmas cake looks fab but I’m afraid I would just be hanging around picking off the marzipan and icing to nibble on every time a piece was cut!
    I get bad chaffing every time I wear a vest top. Frustrating as that’s all I can cope with heat wise during races in the Summer. I get caught under the arms and on the front of my bra line as well. It actually looked like I’d had incisions for a boob job last Summer! I mugged a St John’s worker for Vaseline at VLM and that seemed to ease my pain so I’ve been using that ever since. Body Glide would probably be less slimey though!
    Mary recently posted…Christmas traditionsMy Profile

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