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Zopf – Swiss braid (receipe)


The weekend can’t really start any better…a home made Zopf! Although we see it as a Swiss receipe in Switzerland, this mild and buttery bread has a few traditions in many different countries. Not sure about you, but I find it fascinating to see that as people from different countries we are sooo different…but when it comes to food, we are often sooo alike…

Below is a very traditional receipe of the Swiss traditional Zopf. Enjoy it and happy weekend 🙂

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Swiss Zopf

Traditional Swiss milky and buttery bread with a lovely soft texture
Course Breakfast
Cuisine Swiss
Keyword bread, weekend, zopf
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Resting time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 2 hours 40 minutes
Servings 1 large loaf

Ingredients

  • 1 kg flour if you can find flour for Zopf, then go ahead and use it, alternatively any white flour will also work. Feel free to add a bit of darker flour if you want to make the bread more rustic
  • 25 g salt
  • 150 g butter make sure it is nice and soft before you mix it
  • 42 g yeast I prefer to use the cube rather than powder. If you end up using the powder, you will need approx. 1/3 - so 14 g
  • 5.5 dl milk
  • 1 egg

Instructions

  • Mix the flour and the sugar before adding the butter in small and soft pieces.
  • Dissolve the yeast in the luke warm milk (be careful not to overheat the milk) and add the mixture to the flour. With your hands, mix and gently kneed to a dough. The dough should be nice and soft, but at the same time elastic. When cutting into it, you should see small air bubbles.
  • Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rise to the double. This takes about 90 minutes.
  • Once your dough has risen, cut it in half and and make two long strings of the same length. Make sure that your strings are equally thick and that they are a bit thicker towards the middle. Make a cross with the two strings and braid them. Press the top and bottom together so that the braid does not open. You can obviously braid with three or even four strings - up to you.
  • Prepare a baking tray with parchment paper and gently lay the Zopf onto it. Be careful to maintain the beautiful braid. Beat the egg and brush it onto the bread. Be sure to use as much as the dough will take, this will ensure a nice crust to your Zopf, which is the perfect contrast to the moist texture of the bread.
  • Bake your Zopf at 180 degrees for about 50 minutes. Make sure to let it cool off completely before removing it from the baking tray as you otherwise might risk breaking the braid.

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