Festive Food Fair: Grittibänz

The festive season approaches. Anna from Morsels & Musings invites us to blog about any festive or “special occasion food”.

I decided to present a special Swiss tradition:

December 6 means one thing for „naughty“ kids across Switzerland: a day of reckoning. On this day Samichlaus (St. Nikolaus) is coming in town. (Samichlaus is an ordinary man in red robes with a fake beard, similar to Santa Claus in US.)

Children tremble to hear Samichlaus’s heavy knock on the door and stand wide-eyed as he recounts the worst of their capers for the year. Unbeknownst to the youngsters, the parents hand the Samichlaus a list of their little ones‘ transgressions for the year when they usher him into the house. Kids recite poems that they have learned, in return Samichlaus hand over a bag filled with a Grittibänz (man-shaped bread), oranges, mandarins, walnuts, peanuts (with the shells), Lebkuchen, chocolates…

Last year I baked a Samichlaus and an angel for the culinary advent calendar (this year we will have such a calendar as well, it starts on December 1).

For this event I baked a more or less traditional shaped Grittibänz. The dough is the same and similar to the one I use for Zopf.

Grittibänz
makes 2 or 4 smaller ones

500 g flour
1 1/2 ts salt
3 tb sugar
15 g fresh yeast
60 g soft butter
2,5 dl lukewarm milk
1 egg

for decoration
raisins, almonds or whatever you want

Dissolve the yeast with a little sugar and milk in a cup. Place the flour in a bowl and mix it with salt, sugar, butter, lukewarm milk, half of 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 (about 2 hours).

Knead the dough again, use a knife to cut off pieces of dough in the desired size and roll out to an oval shape. Shape the Grittibänz.

Decorate the figures with raisins, almonds. Leave to rise and put in a cold place for 15 to 20 minutes.

Before baking, brush with egg and possibly sprinkle with coarse granulated sugar. In a preheated oven, bake for 20 to 30 minutes at 200 C.

It’s fun to bake Grittibänz with kids.

More recipes and entries in English.