St. Martin’s Weckmänn
Weckmänn means “watchman.” These little bread men have been keeping watch over the celebration of Martinmas in Germany since the Middle Ages and make a lovely accompaniment to Six-Can Soup. To help them look more like Saint Martin, bishop of Tours, they were baked holding a white clay pipe upside down to look like a bishop’s crosier. As Catholic bishops went out of style in Germany, the pipes got turned right side up so now they’re just a bread man holding a (small for us, but very big for him) pipe. The pipes can be found online, but could also be substituted with a cardboard or pipe-cleaner or candy cane version added on after baking. Either way they are sweet and orangey and adorably weird and I love them.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup raisins
- 1 cup whole milk
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- Zest of one orange
- 6 ½ + cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼-ounce packet instant yeast (2 ¼ teaspoons)
- 1 egg beaten for glazing
Instructions
- Put the raisins in a small bowl of hot water and leave them to soak.
- Combine the milk, butter, and sugar and heat until warm (105° F – 110° F), about one minute in the microwave, or on the stovetop. Whisk to dissolve the sugar. In another bowl, combine the 4 eggs with vanilla extract and orange zest and whisk until smooth. Add to the milk mixture. Sift the flour into the bowl of a stand mixer (or other if mixing by hand), add the yeast and salt. Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix all the ingredients together with the dough hook attachment or by hand. Add more flour by tablespoons until the dough gets picked up by the dough hook and/or feels slightly tacky but smooth. Form the dough into a ball, place it in a clean bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and allow it to rise in the oven on the proof setting or in another warm place for 1 hour or until it’s doubled in size.
- 6 Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into ten equal pieces. They can be patted down and cut out with an extra large gingerbread man cutter, or hand-shaped with or without a CAY weckmann template. To hand-shape, pat the dough into an oval about 5-6 inches long and half-an-inch thick. Place the template on top and cut the dough at the guide marks using a floured knife or kitchen scissors. To cut without the template, make a cut lengthwise halfway up the oval. Then make four more small cuts on the top half of the oval, two on each side, radiating diagonally from the center.
- 7 Using the cuts as a guide, shape St. Martin’s head, arms, and legs. Make his right arm long enough to fold over onto his chest, and leave his left arm out straight. Arrange the ten men 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Cover them with tea towels and let them rise for a further 20 minutes.
- 8 Preheat the oven to 350° F. Brush the men gently with a beaten egg, and decorate them with raisins for eyes and buttons. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown.
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