Last week my friend Daniela invited us to come to her home to bake Grittibanz in honor of St. Nicholas day. These are breads that you shape into boys and girls. They are traditionally made around the time that people are celebrating St. Nicholas day on December 6th.  Daniela patiently showed Jackson (and the rest of us) how to form his bread and he was thrilled with how they turned out.  It was a fun afternoon together with friends….oh yea, and the bread and hot chocolate were divine!!

Another St. Nicholas tradition is for the kids to put their boots out and when St. Nicholas passes by he puts oranges and peanuts in their boots. this may be a tradition we start next year along with the Grittibanz! Here in Switzerland they have a tradition of going out looking for St. Nick. They often take lanterns into the woods and look for him there at night. I am convinced Jackson would not have slept until at least next Dec 6th had we taken part in the woods hunt, so we passed!  That sounded a wee bit scary for us!

For those of you that want to try to make some Grittibanz here is the recipe Daniela used. It is actually the same you could use for Zopf bread. It is so soft and delicious!! After we made our little people we used the extra dough for Daniela to show us how to braid the Zopf loaves.

Bread Recipe for Zopf (as well as Grittibanz)

500g flour (4 1/2 cups)
1 tsp. salt
1 big spoon sugar
1 package of dried yeast. 7g. how much is that? maybe 1 tsp.
75g butter (1/3 cup)
300ml milk (1 1/4 cups)

mix all the dry ingredients. melt the butter, add the milk and warm it (not too hot, or it kills the yeast bacteria). mix it with the rest, pouring it in the middle and stirring, then kneading (the longer the better) until it is nice and smooth and shows bubbles if you cut it with a knife.

let rest for 1 hour or so in room temperature or warmer  (should raise to double size).

form the people. Take ball of dough and elongate it. Cut a slit in the bottom to make legs. Cut a slit on each side to form arms, cut out triangles above the arm to make the remaining dough into head.
mix an egg with some milk and brush it over the dough people.
bake them 20 min with 200 degrees Celsius.
enjoy!

if you want them (or a braided bread) fresh for breakfast, make the dough in the evening and let it rise through the night in the fridge.

Thanks, Daniela for teaching us something new and “Swissy” to take back with us!