Stollen is a yeasted cake from Austria made in winter. The rich dough is mixed with dried fruits and wrapped around a nutty almond paste. I found the following charming description on the web and thought I should offer it to you unedited. The history of the stollen cakes starts in the middle of the 15th century. The cake out of water, flour and oats was the symbol of the infant Jesus in nappies and it’s taste hardly reminds of the well-known stollen cake of today. The backers of Erfurt are told to be the ones who delivered two big stollen cakes to the bishop and the canons at the beginning of the Advent season. But these ones were not tasty at all. The bishop himself is told to have sent a messenger to the pope with the request of abolishing the prohibition of baking with butter during the fasting period. As a result it became a tasty Christmas speciality by adding lard, milk and other good ingredients. This history is mentioned in a document as 'Butterbrief' from the pope to the elector Ernst von Sachsen in the year 1647. In Thuringia some little specialities have been appeared during the centuries that don’t deny to be similar to the great Dresden ones. Many say that it has remained more original (without big amounts of marzipan and in the middle there is a bog, that absorbs the melting butter after baking) and it tastes much better than the 'big brother' of Dresden. The stollen cake was called 'Schittchen' probably because of the log in the middle, this is a cut into longitudinal direction like the one in a bread. It is well-known as 'Erfurter Schittchen' not only in Erfurt but also in some other regions of Thuringia. Inside it is more moist and irresistibly delicious.

A breed of medium-sized mountain cattle from Austria that gives good production of both meat and milk, which is particularly good for cheese-making. They are good at foraging making them ideal for mountain life.