Swiss kids love their bread animals made of Zopf dough. Various animals can be bought in bakeries, the most popular ones are the bread tortoise, mouse and hedgehog. During the next few weeks we’re going to show you how to make various animal shaped breads.
Recipe for 4-6 bread tortoises
Make 500g of bread dough. Either make the normal Zopf dough or the enriched Zopf dough with sugar and grated lemon zest. Prove until doubled in size according to the recipe.
After proving, cut the dough into 4-6 parts and make your animals according to the below instructions. You can stick the various parts together either with a little water or egg wash.
Place the animals onto a baking tray covered in baking parchment and cover them with a clean kitchen towel. Let them prove for another 30 minutes.
Then crack the egg and mix it. Using a brush, apply the eggwash onto the bread animals. You can now sprinkle them with sugar if you want to. If you can find it in your country, use coarse sugar. You can find this kind of sugar in any Swiss supermarket under the name Hagelzucker.
Bake at 180 C for 25-30 minutes. The breads should look nicely browned and sound hollow when you knock the base with your finger.
I love that you are doing all these bread recipes. Bread is one of the most fabulous things about Switzerland. But it is also **relatively** easy to buy fabulous bread. Cooking fabulous Swiss dinners are more of a challenge. So far I’ve loved your meatloaf, sausage salad and Lauchwähe, and I have the ingredients for the Filet im Teig ready to go. Better, right now. I have your Käsewähe in the oven… please: more dinner recipes! — Thanks, Andrew
PS Hugely helpful that you give the ingredients in English and German where relevant. I can write it out and ask in the store by pointing at the written word, even if I can’t pronounce it.
Hi Andrew, thanks so much for your feedback it’s really helpful to know what people want to read. Enjoy the Filet im Teig when you make it! Now that the temperatures are cooler again I’m more keen to write up filling Swiss dinner recipes, I’ve got a few planned for the next few weeks!
I plan to have a couple of kids over for my daughter’s second birthday and we will make these as part of the party. Thanks for sharing!
You‘re welcome! Have a great party!