When pastry chef Tino Gierig is asked what the famous Dresden stollen tastes like, his eyes sparkle and his voice rises to an enthusiastic sing-song as he describes the fruit-filled delicacy.

“Stollen tastes like Christmas, like family, like tradition, like hominess, peace, serenity," the 55-year-old says as he lovingly kneads his buttery yeast dough in in his Dresdner Backhaus bakery before folding in golden raisins.

Bakers in the eastern German city of Dresden have been making stollen for Christmas for hundreds of years and it is now a treasured tradition.

It is usually cut on the first weekend of Advent — the four-week period leading up to Christmas — and served with Christmas cookies.

After baking several loaves of stollen in his Dresden bakery, Gierig picks off some slightly burned raisins from the top, brushes the pastry with butter, sprinkles granulated sugar on top, and finally dusts it with powdered sugar.

Gierig is precise in his baking, and also particular about how to define his hand-baked Christmas specialty - he insists we should call it a pastry, though stollen is often defined as a fruit bread.

While Gierig's description of the delicacy sounds like an ode to Christmas baking in general and the creation of stollen in particular, stollen is also big business with an organization that is dedicated to protecting and promoting the brand.

The Dresden Stollen Protection Association awards a coveted golden quality seals as a certificate of authenticity to bakeries that fulfil certain conditions and which are located in or near Dresden.

The products are checked every year to make sure they fulfil all the expectations of the association.

Dresden stollen come with strict rules: heaps of butter – at least 50% of the flour content – as well as a generous load of golden raisins, candied orange and lemon peel as well as some sweet and bitter almonds.

The addition of margarine, artificial preservatives or artificial flavors is not allowed.

The Dresdner Christstollen is additionally protected by European Union rules that stipulate where and how it needs to be produced, just like Lübecker Marzipan from the northern city of Lübeck, Schwarzwälder Schinken ham from the Black Forest, or Aachener Printen gingerbread from the western city of Aachen.

Nonetheless, the bakeries, which have often been run by the same families for many generations, can add their own spice mix, which usually include vanilla and cardamom, and sometimes tonka beans, cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves.

“There are so many flavors in it that have come together, from all over the world, which is just a wonderful symbiosis,” Gierig says.

In 2024, more than five million stollen were sold, about 20% of which were exported.

Austria and Switzerland are the main countries of export, but Gierig also sells many stollen online to customers in the United States, he says.

While today's recipes are fancy in ingredients and elaborate in preparation, Dresden stollen's medieval origins are humble.

Stollen was first mentioned in a document in 1474 on an invoice from the city's Christian Bartolomai Hospital.

At that time, it was not yet considered a Christmas delicacy, but a fasting pastry that consisted only of flour, yeast and water.

Butter was not allowed until the Catholic's Church Holy Father in Rome granted a special request by Elector Ernest of Saxony to lift the butter ban in 1491.

From then on, stollen bakers have been also allowed to use more substantial ingredients.

AP video shot by Fanny Brodersen