The Aldi Apple Bites That Are Stealing Reddit's Heart In All The Right Ways
Stollen, a holiday cake from Germany, is one of the most traditional cakes from around the world. Sometimes called Christstollen, this dense sweet bread is a type of fruit cake rich with raisins, candied citrus peel, and other dried or candied fruits such as cherries or currants and is often made with a ripple of marzipan running through the center (per Serious Eats & The Spruce Eats). The cake originates in Dresden, Germany, where it's protected by the Dresdner Stollen Association, a group that protects the heritage of the ancient cake and controls who gets to receive the EU's coveted quality label. The Christsollen dates all the way back to the middle ages and with its oval shape, dense, heavy cake, and powdery white topping, is intended to look like the swaddled baby Jesus.
Popular grocery chain Aldi's Stollen Bites obviously do not resemble the swaddled baby Jesus, but they do pack plenty of traditional stollen flavor without waiting four hours for your yeast to rise.
Aldi's bite-size stollen are a hit
Or so say the good people of Reddit, anyway, who say these bite-sized fruit cakes have stolen their hearts. Unlike the Aldi Winternacht Marzipan Stollen or Butter Almond Stollen, which represent a traditional stollen rife with dried fruit, the miniature stollen bites are, as one fan put it, more like "a strudel but not flaky." The outside is a rim of soft, sweet, bread, dusted with powdered sugar, and the inside is a rich gooey filling of apples and nuts.
The stollen bites are also available in marzipan, although fans have trouble deciding between the two fillings. One fan says the apple version was "Definitely unusual to my American tastes, but not at all unappealing." But most say they can't wait to cram the treat into their "stollen hole[s]." Some may be wary of the unfamiliar bread and sweet filling combo, but found it delicious when they tried it, with one fan saying "my husband turned his nose up at them.....then changed his mind when he tasted one!" These treats are only available at Aldi during the holiday season, so if you want to try them, head on over while they're still available.