Swiss Zopf Recipe + Video

Grüezi voll!

I am back home in Ontario for a few weeks. It's always good to come home again to visit family and friends, hang out on the farm, eat my mom's food.

My parents are from Switzerland so there is a touch of Swiss in everything they do and say. All us kids can speak it but we naturally default to English while my parents default to Swiss. Our conversations jump all over the place between the two languages. My husband calls our sketchy language "Swinglish".

Things like:

Pass me the Lumpa! (dish cloth)

Are you going to rasemähe today? (mow the lawn)

Where is the Brot? (bread)

I grew up on bread. Good bread. As a kid my mom would bake loaves on Saturdays. We'd often help her and sometimes she would give us our own piece of dough to make our own little bread. I have many memories of her in the kitchen either mixing the dough, kneading it, letting it rise, or forming it.

But nothing could compare to the smell of it when it came out of the oven. Or tasting it in its freshest, warmest, lightest state.

Are you sensing an emotional connection I have to this bread?

Sundays were special around here and it always started off with Zopf. Zopf is this buttery, light, fluffy bread. It has very little nutritional content but filled us from head to toe with tasty and comforty goodness. Comforty might be Swinglish.

So here is the recipe and a super-speed video of Saturdays at home.