As a new bride living in Zurich, I was introduced by my Swiss husband to Coop Christmas cookies: Mailaenderli (milanais), Brunsli (bruns de Bâle), and Zimtsterne (étoiles à la cannelle), which I loved from day one.
Milanese cookies are basically just a flour, egg, butter and sugar dough cut into shapes like hearts.
Brunsli have chocolate, nuts, and cinnamon in them; the book I’m going to turn to in a minute calls them “little Swiss brownies” - not after an American-style brownie, but for their deep chocolate brown color. The German name literally means “little Basel browns”.
Ground nuts and cinnamon in the dough of Cinnamon Stars gives them a deep tan color, which contrasts nicely with the egg-white and sugar icing on top.
I still do not like the aniseed cookies known as Chräbeli (biscuits à l’anis) that are also a part of the Coop’s four seasonal cookie classics: I’m not wild about the taste, and they are so tough it feels as you bite down on them fiercely (and nothing happens) that surely something’s got to break any second now: a tooth, not the cookie.
Anyway: against this background it’s not surprising that I was delighted by a book that’s just come out - Swiss Cookies: Biscuits for Christmas and All Year Round by Andrew Rushton and Katalin Fekete - because there are recipes for all these cookies in it. So, theoretically at least, I can now try my hand at baking my own favorites and broaden my range because there are plenty of other cookie recipes in the book as well.
This great little publication also features chocolate recipes - including truffles, and Toblerone brownies which are in the American mold - and what the authors refer to as “Christmas bakes” including a Grittibänz (see the next section of this blog for more about that St. Nicholas Day specialty).
The book’s original recipes, which have been translated and adapted from the German by the authors, and the appealing photographs, are all under a Betty Bossi copyright. Betty Bossi happens to be a Coop brand; the good lady never existed - the supermarket chain creates recipes using that name.
Since our Food Corner sponsor is Coop, the cynical are going to think I’m doing this just to please them, but I’m not: I’ve loved the cookies for years, and this new book happens to use Betty Bossi recipes (which incidentally may mean the recipes for my Christmas favorites are not identical to the ones used for the cookies sold every year in the store - Betty Bossi recipes usually put a zippy extra twist on things).
The book has been felicitously geared to expats by the authors and published by a press (www.bergli.ch) that specializes in bridge-building between things Swiss and expats, particularly those who may not be conversant with the country’s languages.
The publication takes care to cater to that readership as well with chatty “did you know that?” boxes, excellent sections devoted to weights and measures (kilos and pounds, liters and pints), oven temperatures, and converting weight to volume (grams to cups and vice versa).
There’s also a guide to ingredients with the names in English, German and French, along with general, illustrated tips for making dough, rolling it out and cutting it into shapes; oven and baking tips; and a section on storing and freezing.
It’s a beautifully done little book ( I keep saying ‘little’ because of its size and mainly, with just over 100 pages, relative slimness), and priced at CHF 29.80 it is far from a bank-breaker.
Illustration courtesy of Bergli Books, Basel.
***
Grittibänz
Thanks to Ed McGaugh, the founder of Expat Expo and passionate foodie, for sending in this article and recipe.
Every year the local bakeries in the German part of Switzerland make Grittibänz to be eaten on St. Nicholas Day (December 6th) . They are made from a very lightly sweetened brioche dough and taste delicious. Usually they are pretty simple but the finer bakeries can make some that are much too pretty to eat.
The Grittibänz originally came from the German-speaking central plain, the Basel and Neuchâtel area. “Gritti” refers to the figure’s legs being apart and “Bänz” is the short form for Benedikt. There is some dispute about how far he dates back, but he has definitely been known since the 16th century. The widely held view is that the figure represents Santa Claus in a very simplified form.
A Basel recipe for Grittibänz
500 g flour
1 tablespoon salt
70 g sugar
70 g butter
2 dl milk
1 egg
25 g yeast
1 egg for coating
For the decoration: raisins, shelled almonds, candied fruit, possibly coarse granulated sugar.
Cream the yeast with a little sugar in a cup. Place the flour in a bowl and mix it with salt, sugar, slightly warmed butter, lukewarm milk, the egg and the yeast to a dough. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Cover and leave to rise to twice the amount in a warm place. Knead the dough again, use a knife to cut off pieces of dough in the desired size and roll out to an oval shape. Mark the head by pressing the dough together slightly and turn the head to the back to make the neck. Cut out the arms and legs with scissors and place them in the required position. Decorate the figures with raisins, shelled almonds and candied fruit and trim the hat with remnants of dough. Leave to rise and put in a cold place for 20 to 30 minutes. Before baking, brush with egg and possibly sprinkle with coarse granulated sugar. In a preheated oven, bake for 20 to 30 minutes at medium temperature.
Illustration courtesy of Ed McGaugh, Zug.
***
My next blog “It is cardoon season, and this veg has an AOC (what’s an AOC, anyway?)” will be posted the week of December 8, 2008.
on Dec 10th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I like your article but would like to make a comment. Betty Bossi has not always been part of the Coop brand but used to be an independent company. The Betty Bossi magazine first appeared in 1956 and was based on the Betty Crocker concept - Betty Bossi was a fictive person just like Betty Crocker. In 1977 the independent Betty Bossi publishing house was founded and it was only in 2001 that Coop took over 50% of the shares.