On our last visit to my parents in Germany I chatted with my sister-in-law who lives in Switzerland - about bread.
She tried to make the Zopf many families enjoy in Switzerland on Sundays, but she couldn't reproduce the flaky texture which is so typical.
After a bit of research I found a recipe on www.schweizerbrot.ch which worked very well for me, and this Zopf has become quite popular with friends and family.
It is essentially like a Challah without sugar and goes well with all sorts of sweet toppings, as well as cheeses.
As flour you can get a special Zopfmehl in Switzerland, which usually is a blend of white spelt (10% to 30%) with plain white flour.
I used 20% spelt.
Here the formula:
| Ingredient |
Weight |
Percent |
| white plain flour |
800g |
80% |
| white spelt flour |
200g |
20% |
| milk |
300g |
30% |
| water |
300g |
30% |
| egg |
60g (1 large) |
6% |
| butter |
120g |
12% |
| fresh yeast |
30g |
3% |
| salt |
20g |
2% |
| yield |
1830g |
183% |
Mix ingredients without butter first, and work until gluten is somewhat developed.
Add butter and work the dough until it is elastic, smooth and makes a nice windowpane test.
Let double in size (this took about 1 hour at 23C), fold and let rest for another 30 minutes.
Divide and shape into a braid (I usually make 2 braids from this amount of dough, the recipe source suggests one big 2-strand braid)
Put ther braid(s) onto baking perchament, apply eggwash, let rest for another 15-30 minutes, egg-wash again.
Bake on lower shelf in pre-heated oven at 200C for about 50 minutes (depending on size, my half-size braids need about 45 min).
Part of the bread got eaten before I could take a photo, here is part of the remains (Iwill post a better picture when available):
The crumb is flaky as it should be when you tear the bread:
Enjoy,
Juergen
