When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I said “I could be a professional speller”. You see I had been brought up reading flash cards for the formative years of my life and if I had one skill it was as someone that can spell (although this plateaued once I hit high school is now cancelled out by poor typing-oh well!). When you’re a child, being able to spell is quite a commodity. For starters there were spelling bees and prizes if you could spell and I remember two particularly sweet prizes-an entire family sized block of fruit and nut chocolate and a copy of the book Heidi by Johanna Spyri.
Heidi became one of my favourite books because she had dark hair and dark haired heroines were hard to come by then and also because she was Swiss and living a most opposite life to what I was here. Plus, and this is when things possibly gets a little odd, she ate the most delicious sounding bread rolls. It’s funny how you have an imprinted taste or image of a food item merely from reading about it and poring over the words over and over again. I wanted to try those Swiss milk buns but I never quite did.
Last month I was tapped on the head by the award fairy and I was lucky enough to win the Australian Society of Travel Writer’s award for Best Online Travel Writing! I’ve really enjoyed my time with travel writers, they’re one of the most open minded group of writers and journalists that I’ve ever met and this was really the sweet, luscious icing (cream cheese of course) on a delicious year of cake. And the prize was a doozy-a 6 day trip to Switzerland sponsored by Tourism Switzerland where I could be Heidi for almost a week!
And serendipitously, after I collected my award I travelled around New Zealand. I stayed at an amazing place called Kamahi Cottage where the hostess of the lodge Swiss born Elisabeth Cowan baked us a delicious Zopf or plaited Swiss bread for breakfast. As soon as I tried it I knew that this was the bread that Johanna Spyri wrote about-it was soft, eggy and milky and absolutely worth pinching a la Heidi! As soon as I sank my teeth in I knew that this was pure Heidi bread!
Similar to challah or brioche this is still different in itself-not quite as rich as brioche and nowhere near as troublesome. It also retains a milky, buttery taste to it. Liz was kind enough to share the recipe for the bread with me, the buttery, milky eggs plaited bread that is light but still different from a challah or brioche. You see it’s never too late to live out your childhood heroine fantasy!
So tell me Dear Reader, what was your favourite subject or what was your talent at school?
Heidi Bread: Zopf Swiss Plaited Bread
Recipe adapted from Elisabeth Cowan of Kamahi Cottage
- 100 grams melted butter
- 1 beaten egg
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoons instant dried yeast
- 1 cup lukewarm/blood temperature water
- 1 cup lukewarm/blood temperature milk
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 5 – 5½ cups high grade (strong) flour
- 1 egg yolk and 1 tablespoon milk for egg wash
From this
To this after 15 minutes
1. In a large mixing bowl combine butter, egg, sugar, yeast, water and milk and leave till yeast mix is bubbly (about 10-15 minutes).
Leave to rise
Until at least doubled in volume after an hour
2. Add 4-5 cups flour and salt, insert dough hook and knead for at least 5 minutes. Add a little more flour gradually, if needed, for a soft and very pliable dough. Cover bowl with plastic film till dough is well risen.
3. Line a tray with baking parchment and on top of this shape into three long rolls and plait on the parchment. This recipe makes one very large plait or 2 medium sized ones or 4 small ones that are ideal for a long sandwich. Place on baking paper lined tray and brush plaits with a beaten egg wash.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C. When the plaits are well risen and double in size, bake for approximately 30 mins till deep golden brown. Cool immediately on wire racks.
A smaller plait on the left brushed with only milk while the larger plait is brushed with egg wash
A note from Liz: By the way, this is a recipe that freezes so well- especially if wrapped and placed in the freezer when barely cool. I then run it briefly under the cold tap ( stops crust flaking off) and pop it into a moderate oven to bake until warmed through.
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77 Comments | Add your own
A beautiful Zopf and ode to Heidi! The area where the story takes place is amazing (my boyfriend comes from that region). You’d love it!
Cheers,
Rosa
Congratulations!
Platted bread always looks so pretty. I can imagine it with some butter and a slice of cheese…and some dancing around in lush the green Swiss country side grass hehe.
That cow reminds me of the ones they have at the Swiss Cottage in the Blue Mountains.
oh you really brought me some memories back. I love Heidi and used to watch cartoons of Heidi and used to dream of the bread and cheese that she ate. I even made a cake of Heidi here s the link
http://snookydoodlecakes.blogspot.com/2010/06/heidi-cake.html
Oh lovely! I’ve been looking at bread recipes lately and this doesn’t look as hard it is seems thanks!!!
Back at school my favourite subject…hmmm…tough question i didn’t really like primary or high school but it would have to be Art
I liked painted and all those things hehe even though I have no talent what so ever hahaha
When are you going to Switzerland? You’ll love it! I went there a few years ago and OMG the cheese fondue!!!
Have fuN!
this is too perfect! I bet it made your house smell wonderful as it was baking too!
I was very good at producing project books for geography. I love doing them, funny how life turns out. My blog is really a continuation of this in a way, more than 40 years later.
Don’t you just love the way braided breads look so difficult when they are so so easy! I love taking any bread dough and (when I want to impress!) braiding them. I have watched videos of braiding up to 6 strands, but I can’t quite ge the hang of it. I wll have to try this recipe- anything with yeast, butter, and milk has GOT to be good! Girl, you rock!
this bread looks oh so good!
Love european breads.
I always thought and pictured in my mind when Heidi ate milk bread; a bowl of broken up bread with warm milk fresh from the goat over it.
Funny how we interpret things isn’t it.
Ah, spelling. And grammar. And syntax. And, possibly back then, fiercely frowning on starting sentences with ‘And’. I loved everything to do with English and writing and creativity… not too surprising, then, that I ended up a writer and an editor.
BTW, I loved Heidi as a child. You dreamed of the bread – I dreamed of the creamy goat’s milk she’d drink with it. It sounded impossibly exotic to my suburban 70s self.
Congrats on your award! That bread looks so light and lovely.
this looks so good i can feel some yodelling coming on
I love this type of bread Lorraine, and yours is beautiful.I have to say my favourite subject in school was art class and I ended up working in the design field.
What a perfect bread…I feel like I can smell it.
I remember Heidy, and I remember all the bread she ate, and yes, I imagined me in the Alps running with the sheeps.
And when I was at school, I was good on Math, cna you belive it? Now I cannot make math operations if I don’t have a calculator or an excel file.
I was a little bookwork in school too – still am
And this bread looks amazing – so shiny and perfectly braided! Nice to know it freezes well too, even though I’m sure I won’t have a problem finishing the entire loaf…
yum looks delicious would love some for breakfast right now! At school I love home ec/ cooking classes and athletics.
Congrats on winning the award. This bread sounds and looks delicious
Congratulations!
I was good at reading, no-one would sponsor me in the MS read-a-thon as I read too quickly. I still do now, when I get the time.
I was always into art and drama at school. We didn’t have spelling Bees but I did love showing off that I could spell. The plaited loaf looks delicious and wonderfully shiny with the egg wash. GG
Congrats on your win! Well deserved. Enjoy Switzerland….it is absotlutely gorgeous. (just make sure the Lindt factory in Zurich is actually open when you go to visit…..I went on a day it was closed…..to say I was upset is a BIG understatement!
)
I cant wait to try this bread! It sounds delish!! My favourite subject right through school was science. I needed to know how everytihg worked!So it seemed natural to continue that into adulthood. In my next life I want to be an ER doctor and the life after that I want to be a storm chaser!
Oh so can’t wait to make this! Could hide and eat the whole thing!
Congratulations on your very well deserved travel award. I look forward every day to your food and experiences …and humour. Thanks
Congratulations on winning a trip to Switzerland! And, how fun to have found your Heidi bread. It looks lovely and very pinchable. Great tip about preventing the crust from flaking off a frozen loaf. I’ve had that problem with brioche before.
Yum this looks really good and I love your memories about spelling and Heidi. Nice work on the win, you totally deserve it
This Heidi bread looks amazing! Congratulations on winning the trip to Switzerland – I love it there! I’m not sure I had a favourite subject at school :S
Thanks for this lovely bread recipe – it might be just the thing for Xmas breakfast.
First: huge congrats on a well-deserved win
! Second: you would not believe it, my copy of ‘Heidi’ is the same edition! Thirdly: the braided bread does look moreish: is made almost in the same thus manner in other parts of Europe too: I certainly grew up with a similar offering. My fave subjects at school were biology and geography, but my ‘talents’ [?] lay in writing, spelling, acting and off-the-cuff speech making! Yep, Uni robbed me of decent handwriting and it is amazing how many typos I manage on the keyboard when in a hurry! What happened 
?
Congratulations on the award.
I was in the quiz team at high school and sometimes the questions tested spelling. Once we were asked to spell antithesis and no one in the team got it right, we didn’t even come close. At that point I realised a career in spelling was not for me:)
Congrats on your award, TRUE!
VERY well deserved too!
Loved maths when I was in school, just is me,
Used to pretend I was Gretel (of Hansal and Gretal) and so I didn’t get lost, all over the house a breadcrumb trail you would see!
Mmmmm…. looks so lovely! I loved the Heidi books too, but was more interested in the goats cheese. Now I’m all growEd up I can only eat goat cheese, so lucky I love it,yumm..
Can hardly wait for your Heidi adventures in Switzerland!
A gorgeous loaf, it really sounds fantastic!
NQN, your bread is beautiful! And I love that you wanted to be a professional speller!
I’ve loved English Literature since I was a kid and it was called plain old English. I majored in it in college and am forever wondering why I am not still sitting in those wonderful classes, fading out of this universe and getting lost in that one…
Oh I loved heidi and Sylvia is now starting to read it already – just a kiddie version – I just remember a rhyme about the hottentots – hmmm! The bread sounds wonderful and if heidi liked it so will I
btw congrats on your award – well deserved – I don’t read so much of your travel posts because my time is limited but got waylaid with the vietnam one just now and it is fantastic – love your writing
Beautiful bread–I want to learn to braid 4 or 6 strands with this recipe! Congratulations on your award as well.
I loved literature best, followed by history, political science, anthropology…the humanities, in general.
English, definitely. And my talent at school? Being Dux of every school I attended, I s’pose…
P.S. I did read Heidi, but I was always more a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. She, too, had brown hair, but was so plucky and awesome and also the books always had great descriptions of food
Congrats on the writing award! Well deserved. If there was an award for “most beautiful bread,” you’d win that one, too!
I think i’ve read heidi too…
i think art, the sciences and calculus are some of the things that i do well in.
Yum! I love bread, even though I don’t eat a lot of it anymore. But this looks so good.
Yahoo Lorraine! Congrats on the travel writing award…you deserve it!
Congratulations on the award! I love reading your travel posts, they make me jealous
Your pleated bread roll is so pretty
Heidi would have loved it! Hehe 
oh and I could spell good too! (not sure about grammar though)
I’m so excited to make this! I just learned how to do a 5 piece braid, and I haven’t had the chance to use it.
Nice bread! I used to like Heidi too
.
Ciao
Alessandra
Congratulations on your win and your fabulous year! I hope the new one is even better. The bread looks fabulous! xoxo Mum
Fabulous writer, fabulous award and well deserved fabulous prize… oh and of course yummy bread!
ps..forgot to say congratulations lorraine..
Congratulations on your writing award and your prize!You surely deserve it after all your hard work and your informative writing from all around the world!
Oh dear, I was also a spelling swot, and was sent to classes several years above my actual class for English and spelling lessons. Which meant no end of bullying for me! (And I was only tiny). I also devoured the Heidi books and literally salivated over the descriptions of grandfather melting cheese over bread; plus the soft bread rolls went she went to stay with the rich family in the city. When I went to Switzerland for the first time I stuffed myself with raclette, fondue, French bread, and chocolate … and I climbed many mountains. (Perhaps not every one!)
What an amazing prize. Congratulations!!!
I’ll definitely be giving this bread a go it looks easy and fabulous.
I was a bit of a whiz at maths at school and I still love the odd maths problem. I’m a closet nerd.
Oh Lorraine, you and I must be kindred spirits indeed.
, never mind the story is exactly the same. I now read it to my 6 yr.old grand-daughter and she loves it too.
Heidi, my all-time favourite read as a child( although my copy has a red cover not the picture cover like yours)
Then our love of Brioche, so I most certainly would love this offering of Zopf. Thirdly, I was a master speller throughout school and always scored a perfect 100, to this day I am a stickler for correct spelling and can’t control my need to point out when a word is misspelt.
Congratulations on winning that terrific prize. Love your work!
Congrats on your award that is great news- I was always a top speller as well!
Hope it tasted as good as it looks. Well done, Miss Heidi.
I LOVED Heidi! And congrats on your award!
I love Heidi (and Clara). I wonder if you know that there is a cartoon of the novel and it is almost as good as the book. I still remember and cherish it.
And I too tried and experimented on the melted cheeses Heidi eats with her Grandpa
(to disastrous results)
Oh also congrats for your well deserved award. I love reading your travel posts.
I can hear the cartoon theme echoing… Heidi Heidi Deine welt sind die berge… lalala
Congrats! uh switzerland thats an other world…
Your milk bread zopf looks perfect. I miss this stuff badly… =Í
favourite subject at school… no doubt history and arts. I used to hate cooking as subject, but dont tell anybody. shhh
I was a real Heidei fan and loved the descriptions of her simple yet tasty meals with her grandfather. Congrats on your award!
A HUGE congrats to you on your award!! That sure is a doozy of a prize — I am sure you will have an amazing time! (Eat fondue and chocolate for me, my dear!
)
Congratulation !! I am so happy for you. Thank you for sharing this with us. I used to enjoy reading Heidi when i was younger as well.
The bread looks delicious!
Congrats on your award and that trip to Switzerland sounded amazing! Initially, I thought the bread was a challah (I love braiding challah), but no doubt it’s just as delicious in it’s own way..would llve to try it!
My fav subject in school was art, because I loved and still love, to paint and draw. I even minored in art and art history in college
Congratulations on the award, that’s a fantastic achievement
I’m not a massive bread eater but this one sounds particularly good.
My favourite subject in primary school was spelling too – I was devastated when I started high school and found it wasn’t a subject anymore!
It’s me! hehe. My mum loved that book and so named me after it
This bread looks divine. I HAVE to try it, don’t I?
My favourite subject was sport, English and history. Oh & language. Just not math or science haha.
Heidi xo
Lorraine,
Your version of my recipe looks amazing! It’s also great toasted with butter & fresh strawberry jam (yum) and it makes fabulous French Toast(when slightly older).
I too remember Heidi’s fantastic meals. I remember a mouth-watering description of some grilled ,golden cheese that Grandfather slapped sizzling and bubbling onto a slice of bread. Yum!
My my congratulations! That’s very nice to hear and I always love your travel stories.
Hope you have a lot of fun in Switzerland!
The really does look soft and buttery! Must try this after all the Christmas cooking.
you also could have baked listening to the “Sound of Music” !! do re mi fa sol la …!!
pierre
Ha ha I just posted a lovely braided loaf and I am so into them lately. Yours is just beautiful! And congratulations on the well-deserved award!
Congratulations, what aN award. you do manage to fit an awful lot of good info into your posts. The bread looks great and seems to be quite easy, all in, proove and roll. Yes !
Congrats on your award! What lovely bread. I enjoyed reading Heidi as a child too.
as far as i’m concerned, heidi is the quintessential swiss girl’s name, and it’s all because of that book. whenever i meet a heidi, i automatically assume she’s from switzerland, and i’m usually wrong.
Love the glaze from the egg
Your bread is so gorgeous! I want to make some ASAP! YUM!
I was also an exceptional speller in school, Lorraine:)
This looks great – lighter and less troublesome than brioche sounds good to me! Bookmarked to try.
p.s. Congratulations on the award.
x
I was a speller too, but never on a bee level. Grammar, as well, which has led to my being one of those gits who corrects people.
I’m terrified of baking bread. Maybe that should be my new years resolution.
Finally got around to making this bread and it turned out beautifully!
A great recipe. Thanks x
My husband is Swiss and after I made your olive focaccia on the weekend said he had a craving for Zopf – I can’t believe I was on your website commenting how beautiful the focaccia turned out and noticed this recipe. Definitely be making this either tomorrow or on the weekend. Thanks for a great website & congratulations on your award & fabulous prize.
Just following up my previous comment. I made this & it turned out beautifully!
Thanks,
Sam
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