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Monday, March 25, 2013

Tresse for Swiss Sunday breakfast


In Switzerland, the weekend's breakfast - especially Sunday's breakfast -  is not complete without "Tresse". A tresse is a white, butter and milk based bread that is braided or "tressé", hence its name. It is found in Swiss bakeries on the weekends but some people also make it themselves at home.

This Sunday I wanted to prepare a nice brunch so I decided to make a tresse myself and it was too good. I had it with nutella, jam and butter, and honey. And straight out of the oven still fuming! I also made nice sandwiches later in the day with some Gruyère and ham and they were great.

If you want to make someone happy on a Sunday morning and have home-made bread, I suggest you try this. It's not difficult and takes in total less than 2hrs to make, of which 1 hr for the dough to rise during which you can go back to sleep or go for a run :-)

Recipe for one big tresse

20 g fresh yeast
60 g butter
3.5 dl milk
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
500 g flour

how to braid the tresse (from my notebook)

In a bowl break up the yeast in small pieces. Melt the butter, add the milk and warm to finger temperature (37C). Use some of the milk and butter to dissolve the yeast. Add the rest of it to the bowl along with sugar. Mix salt and flour and add gradually while mixing in (with butter-milk-yeast). Mix well until getting a nice dough that does not stick anymore. Let the dough leaven under a cloth (I put the bowl in the oven) for at least 30 min (I do 1 hr). Then break up the dough in two pieces and roll them into longitudinal sticks (which are a little thicker in the center and thinner and the ends). Then braid the dough into a nice tresse (see scheme above) and put it on a plate with parchment paper. Brush the dough with an egg and put in a cold oven. Turn the heat on and bake for 35min at 220C.

Reference: Croqu'menus

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