Hallauer Zwetschgenstreusel

It’s not hard to get your hands on a copy of the Swiss Army cookbook. There’s a pdf right here.

But still, I was absolutely delighted when an old friend of Sam’s, who was military himself, sent me a hard copy in the mail.

Previously I’d been doing my big batch cooking from Sam’s old green cookbook (every recipe is calculated to serve a hundred soldiers), from his time in the army. Like all Swiss men, he was required to do military service, which he did as a Fourier, planning and ordering all the food for his company.

The recipes in the cookbook are detailled and interesting, giving a good overview of standard Swiss food from all the cultural regions of the country, as well as providing guidance on many cooking basics—there are great visuals of different cuts of meat and how vegetables can be sliced and diced (paysanne vs brunoise etc.).

My favourite addition to the new cookbook from the old is that the Verdaulichkeit, digestibility, of each dish is listed, either light, medium, or difficult. Zug style fish filets? Easily digestible. Sauerkraut? Difficult. Birchermüesli? Medium.

The cookbook does its best to represent the different parts of Switzerland as well, and has everything from Genfer Schweinsfrikassee (pork fricassee from Geneva), to Raclette from the Valais, to this plummy bake which presumably takes its name from the region of Hallau, near Schaffhausen which is famous today for its vineyards, but probably also has its fair share of Zwetschgen trees.

Streuselkuchen is always a popular dish, and there are similar versions from Swissmilk and Fooby.

This recipe follows the army cookbook version pretty faithfully, though I have used my own using my trusty bread base dough, and scaled down from serving one hundred soldiers (7 kg dough! 5 kg Zwetschgen!) to one family friendly sheet.

For the dough:

500 g flour

12 g salt

300 ml milk, room temperature

50 g sugar

20 g fresh yeast, or 2 tsp dry yeast

50 g butter

For the streusel topping:

100 g flour

100 g sugar

100 g butter, cold

To assemble:

500 g Zwetschgen, halved

100 g almonds, chopped

For the dough:

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk, sugar and yeast.

Make a well in the flour and add the liquid ingredients. Stir this together until a dough starts to form, then add the butter and begin to knead it on the table. Knead for about 15 minutes, or until it is smooth and elastic. Alternatively, mix for about 10 minutes in a stand mixer with a dough hook. Cover and let rise for about an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

For the streusel topping:

In a bowl, mix together the flour and sugar. Add the butter in pieces, and rub into the flour mixture until you get a sandy mixture.

To assemble and bake:

Preheat your oven to 200° C / 400° F / gas mark 6.

Roll out the dough to about 2 cm thick, and place on a large baking sheet.

Top with the halved Zwetschgen, almonds and streusel topping.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the bottom has browned and the streusel is golden.