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:

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

When I first saw Zopf at a farmer's market, I figured it was challah, but the salesmen (definitely not farmers) from Swiss Bakers assured me it wasn't and that it had no egg in it.   It was really amazingly tasty.   Since then all the recipes I have seen posted for Zopf have egg, and look identical to recipes for Challah.   Does anyone have any experience making Zopf without egg?    Thanks!

Varda

The Swiss have the reputation for being very punctual. Well, you might think now, that we're this time to early. But - you're mistaken.

The 6th of december is here Santa Claus' day, or as we say, "the Samichlaus comes". Sadly, the real Samichlaus doesn't come to our house anylonger as my siblings and me are considered to be too old by now. (Well, I understand, we're 22, 20 and 17 ...) But we still keep the rest of the custom up.

So every 6th of december we will gather at home, enjoy the traditional dinner consisting out of a Grättimaa, a small Samichlaus shaped out of a savoury enriched Challah-like dough (basically our normal Zopf recipe) , lot's of cheese, some dried meat, jam, nuts, tangerines, lots of sweets and hot chocolate.

the dinner table...

the Grättimaa before and after baking ...

and my mom had her annually mass-production for all friends and relatives who are fond of her famous Stollen. She sends them to friends who live scattered over Europe. After the butter brush they were to get a light confectioner's sugar shower.  (but first they had all to cool, therefore they are still missing it on the picture)

Happy Samichlaus to all of you, but especially to tssaweber and chouette22, the exil-Swiss here on TFL! =)

Salome

Last weekend, I wanted to get my baguette experiments on the way, and used one of David’s (dmsnyder) comments and his wonderful posts (how fantastic to be able to benefit from them and the ensuing comments of the members here) as a starting point. My goal eventually is to try all of his three favorites, the one by Samuel Fromartz and any other styles that catch my attention, to see which one I might favor in the end.

This past Saturday I made Pat’s baguettes (proth5) using David's recipe, shaping one into the classic form and the other one into an épi one.

Then on Sunday I attempted Philippe Gosselin’s baguettes, again following David's footsteps, and again making two épi shapes, since we like the crust and crunch so much. I baked them quite a bit longer than what the recipe suggested, but couldn't get a darker color. 

We liked all of them, the tastes were wonderful, but for some reason I didn’t get too much oven spring in either of them. I’ll have to keep trying. Gosselin’s needed a lot less attention I found. Either bake disappeared on the same day…

I also made a big Zopf, this time after my compatriot Thomas’ recipe:

It came out very well, but I guess I cannot really compare it with my age-old recipe, since I tested a new flour that I recently bought at Costco: The Eagle Mills AP unbleached blend of white and ultragrain flours, as the label states, 20lbs for $5.68, can't beat that!

If you are interested, you can see the nutritional profile here. Its protein content per 100g is 13.7, fiber 12.2, and ash 1.6. They are selling it as AP flour and I am checking if I can really use it as such. Since it has quite a percentage of whole wheat in it, and I often mix my AP with whole wheat anyway, this could be quite convenient.

For a Zopf however, one typically uses only white flour. My daughter was suspicious right away when she saw it, since the appearance was a bit less white (or light yellow) than what she is used to see in a Zopf. She often suspects that I smuggle “healthy” things into her food, when she prefers bread and pasta, for example, to be as white as possible. Some weeks ago I made a Chocolate-Zucchini-Bread, and she loved it, thinking it was a chocolate cake. Later I made the mistake (I thought she was old enough now – 12y) of telling her that it actually was Zucchini Bread – she had no more of it!...

Back in July, a "Swiss sourdough youngster" introduced herself and was kind enough to share her recipes for some fantastic breads. I was particularly excited about the zopf because I had never made it before, and it was just the kind of bread I was craving. Salome explains that this is her mother's version of the traditional Swiss Sunday bread; it is not sweetened so will pair well with many things. I had it plain, and with blackberry jam (my first batch of freezer jam!), and honey, and butter, and cheese... not all at the same time :) but all of these variations were delicious.

Original post here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12781/swiss-sourdough-youngster-introducing-herself#comment-75348

My notes:

- I used 100g KA whole wheat flour and 900g KA all-purpose flour
- I couldn't find Quark and substituted it with homemade whole milk yogurt
- The recipe calls for 40g fresh yeast; I used 20g of active dry based on a conversion factor of 0.5. It didn't taste "yeasty" to me but I think I will reduce the amount of yeast and let it ferment for longer next time.
- I used honey instead of glucose.
- My oven and half sheet pan are small and I was concerned the two large loaves would burn at the edges if I baked them at 400F, so I baked them at 350F for slightly longer (40-45min.) instead.

Here are the loaves!

Thanks, Salome, for sharing this recipe with us. I enjoyed making it very much!

Hello everyone,

I thought it’s about time to introduce myself. I have been a very silent member of TFL for over a year and reading pretty much ALL the forum entries through my RSS feeder. I enjoy all of your entries and discussions tremendously, this wealth of information and knowledge and have become so familiar with the regular members’ creations and variations. I am so impressed!

I grew up in Switzerland (hello Salome and Thomas, fellow Swiss citizens) and came over to the US when I was 27, absolutely determined to stay only one year (teaching at a university). However, on that first flight I met my husband (coming from India to the US) and the rest is history. Even though both of us wanted to go back to our respective countries, we decided to stay in the US as this was somewhat  neutral ground for us (no one having the home advantage). It’s been quite a few years since that flight!

When people ask what I miss most from Switzerland, one of my top three items is always BREAD and the bakeries and pastry shops in that same category. I started baking breads many years ago to fill the lack of hearty, thick-crusted loaves that I was unable to find here (I remember my fist visit to Panera Bread,  those loaves looked like they might have a good crust, but I was so disappointed after buying a loaf or two because they were just as “spongy” as everything else I had tried).

I have just returned from a month-long visit to see my family in Switzerland and my daily visits to different bakeries and trying as many delicious breads as possible is always one of the highlights.

I believe that my daily visits of TFL’s forums have helped me with my bread-nostalgia.

All of my breads have been yeast-based until a few months ago when, through the inspiration of this site, I have started experimenting with sourdough, with decent results so far.

This is a celebration bread I made for the birthday of a dear friend. I believe it took me about two hours to shape this harvest wheat sheaf. I found it on p. 164 of “The Ultimate Bread and Baking Book” by Linda Collister & Anthony Blake.

And this is a Zopf, a loaf that I bake very often since my kids absolutely love it, and it has also become an often requested bread from my neighbours, when I need to thank them for little favours. "Just bake me a Zopf," they'd often say.
It is two-coloured because my lacto-vegetarian mother-in-law was just visiting from India and unable to eat the part with the egg-wash.

I am looking forward to more inspiration from these forums and hopefully I'll be able to share a little bit something as well.

Anita

I am looking for a US supplier that sells Zopfmehl, a flour used specifically for the Swiss Sunday bread named Zopf.  On one site I found it is 90% white wheat with 10% white spelt.  King Arthur suggested a mix of 15% bread flour and 85% all-purpose.  Rather than either of those options, I'd like to find the real thing somewhere here in the States.

Thanks,

Terri