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What are Zwieback ? | Goessel Musuem

What is a Zwieback ?

Zwieback for Faspa | Goessel Museum

The Museum Store has many Mennonite Cookbooks (for sale) with a multitude of recipes for this "old" Low-German Mennonite favorite.

Zwieback for Faspa | Goessel Museum

This 1958 cookbook  is out of print. 

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Krause House | Goessel Museum
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Grandma teaches the art of making zwieback

Holding the dough

Holding the dough

Pinching the dough

Pinching the dough

Make the big one for the bottom

Make the big one for the bottom

Is this how Grandma ?

Is this how Grandma ?

Pinch a smaller one for the top

Pinch a smaller one for the top

Pull off the dough and put it on top

Pull off the dough and put it on top

Grandma is 94

Grandma is 94

Freshly baked zwieback

Freshly baked zwieback

Freshly baked zwieback.  "Yum, Yum"

Freshly baked zwieback. "Yum, Yum"

Eat them for Faspa with jelly

Eat them for Faspa with jelly

Also available at Museum Store Grandma Voth shows how to make zwieback on DVD

Mennonite Heritage Museum cookbook From Pluma Moos to Pie  Available at Museum Store

Zwieback
DVD of Grandma Voth making zwieback | Goessel Museum

Krause House Zwieback

2 1/2 cups milk                 1 T. salt

1/4 cup margarine            2 pkg. dry yeast

1/3 cup sugar                   flour

 

Warm milk, margarine, sugar and salt to 120-130 degrees. Combine 3 cups flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl.  Add warm liquids all at once.  Blend at low mixer speed for 1/2 minute.  Then beat at high speed 3 minuets.  Stir in enough flour to handle.  Knead until smooth. Dough should not be too soft.  Cover and let dough rise 1 hour or until double.  Grease cookie sheet.  Pinch off large balls of dough and place on greased cookie sheet.  Pinch off smaller balls and place on top, pressing down firmly with flat of fingers.  Cover and let rise 30 minutes.  Bake until brown in 400 degree oven, about 15-30 minutes.  

Krause House | Goessel Museum
Zwieback just out of the oven | Goessel Museum
Cookbook FROM PLUMA MOOS to PIE | Goessel Museum

Zwieback, The Mennonite Bun

From the cookbook MENNONITE FOODS AND FOLKWAYS FROM SOUTH RUSSIA, Vol. I,

by Norma Jost Voth (1990, 1994) p. 36

Zwieback may will have originated in Holland where they were used as food on shipboard, thus, finding their way to the Vistula Delta through the port city of Danzig.  Or it may have been just the opposite---the Zwieback and Schiffsbrote (ships bread) produced by Danzig bakers eventually finding their way to other parts of northern Europe.

 

Zwieback may be the only Mennonite food dating back to the time of the Reformation or the time of Menno Simons (1496-1561), speculates historian Cornelius Krahn.  One clue to this is Tweebaksmarkt (Zwieback market), a street which the Krahns discovered in Leeuwarden on a trip to the Netherlands in 1953.

 

Whatever its origin, the tradition along with the emigrants, made its way to North and South Amerian and remains a strong part of ou food heritage.

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2014-2024 Mennonite Heritage

and Agricultural Museum

Created by Fern Bartel nee Schmidt

 

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