Easter will be here very soon. There is no way you can miss it. Shops and supermarkets are full of Easter related goodies and decorations in the shape of eggs and bunnies. I like chocolate and I love marzipan but sometimes Easter can be a bit too sweet . As it is, many chocolate bunnies and caramel eggs end up in the disposal bin rather than in a hungry mouth due to the over-abundance of Easter sweets. Instead of wasting precious Swiss Francs on mediocre chocolate (the one exception in my humble opinion being the Lindt Goldhase ) I decided to create my own Easter bunny. For this purpose I adapted the recipe for a traditional Swiss Christmas treat, the Grittibänz . It's a human shaped sweet bread very similar to the braided Zopf bread but a bit sweeter and of course smaller. However, instead of baking a Santa Claus shaped bread roll, I decided to try my hand on baking a bunny shaped bread roll . You may call the result Zopfhäsli (which basically means Zopf i...
Earth - S. Hofschlaeger / pixelio.de More than ten years ago, I put together a small phrase list of Swiss German words and expressions that relate to holidays and traveling in general. There, you can find the Swiss German words for 'breakfast buffet', 'beach' or 'travel agency'. What you won't find, however, are the names of places and countries on our beautiful earth. Swiss German Place Names Now, you need to understand that although people in Switzerland speak Swiss German in day to day life ( or French or Italian if they don't live in the German speaking part of Switzerland ), most written text will be in German (what we call High German or Standard German). The most notable exception would be personal messages, especially on apps like whatsapp or on social media. This means, the official names of places and regions in Switzerland are always in German. Nevertheless, we of course have a Swiss German equivalent for all of them that we use...