This Christmas bread combines all the best parts of Stollen, Panettone, and Fruitcake for a buttery brioche studded with vanilla and rum infused fruit.

170 gramsraisins (~1 cup packed)

85 gramsslivered almonds (~3/4 cup)

120 gramscandied dried apples (~3/4 cup chopped)

60 gramscandied citrus peel (~1/2 cup chopped)

35 gramscandied ginger (~1/4 cup finely chopped)

1 podTahitian vanilla bean (just the beans scraped from the pod)

1.5 gramsground nutmeg (~1 1/2 teaspoons)

3/4 cupdark rum

3/4 cupwhole milk

8 gramsactive dry yeast (about 2 teaspoons)

1 tablespoonhoney

500 gramsbread flour

142 gramscultured unsalted butter (10 tablespoons at room temperature)

4 largeeggs (1 cup at room temperature)

1/2 teaspoonsalt

142 gramscultured unsalted butter (10 tablespoons melted)

powdered sugar (for dusting)

Put the raisins, slivered almonds, dried apples, citrus peel, ginger, vanilla beans, nutmeg, and rum into a bowl and mix to combine. Let the fruits and nuts soak overnight, stirring a few times to ensure every piece gets its turn in the rum bath. You can speed this up by sealing everything in a vacuum pouch if you happen to have a chamber vacuum.
In a medium glass bowl, microwave the milk until it's warm to the touch (110 degrees F).
Whisk the yeast and honey into the milk until dissolved and then whisk in about a third of the flour.
Cover and let this rest in a warm place for 1 hour to give the yeast a head start.
While the yeast mixture is resting, take the butter and eggs out of the refrigerator so they can come up to room temperature.
Whisk the eggs until uniform and frothy.
Check the fruit and if there is any liquid remaining at the bottom, drain the fruit in a strainer (the spiced rum is awesome with some soda water or in apple cider).
Once the yeast mixture is done resting, put the butter and salt in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream until light and fluffy.
With the mixer running at medium speed, pour the eggs into the mixer in a slow steady stream. If your butter and eggs weren't up to room temperature, or you add the eggs in too quickly, the mixture will curdle, but even if it does don't worry about it as it will be fine after you mix the flour in.Stop the mixer and add the remaining flour and yeast mixture to the butter and eggs and mix until combined into a dough.
Switch to the dough hook and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic (5-7 minutes).
Add the fruits and nuts and knead in by hand.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut it in half.
Dust your hands with flour and shape each half into an oval by stretching the top surface with your thumbs and using your other four fingers to tuck the stretched parts into the bottom of the loaf. After doing this a number of times, you should have a relatively smooth (except for all the fruit poking out) top surface. Set the loaf in the middle of parchment lined baking sheet and repeat with the other piece of dough.
Cover each loaf with a damp clean dish towel and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
About 10 minutes before the bread is done rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
Bake until a deep golden brown color (about 40-45 minutes).
As soon as the loaf comes out of the oven, put it in a large bowl, right side up and then drizzle half the butter all over the top surface of the bread. Flip the loaf over and then drizzle the other half on onto the bottom surface of the bread. Transfer the loaf back to the sheetpan. Pour the butter pooled at the bottom of the bowl back into the vessel that originally heald the melted butter and then repeat with the other loaf of bread. Continue repeating, alternating loaves, until there is no butter left.
Let the butter soak into the bread, so that the surface of the loaves is no longer shiny, and then dust the tops of the bread with a generous amount of powdered sugar. I use about 1/4 cup per loaf.
Let the Stollen cool completely and then wrap it well with plastic wrap and then set it a cool dark place for at least 1 week for the butter to flavors to meld. You'll probably want to dust some more powdered sugar on top before serving.