Finally made the tiger-striped sandwich roll of Nathan’s dreams. # 398: Dutch Crunch

It took me until college to learn that Dutch crunch bread isn’t normal outside the Bay Area. It’s Nathan’s favorite sandwich bread and almost every deli here offers it, so it blew my mind that most of the country hasn’t heard of it!

A perfect Dutch crunch has a soft roll base with a medium-thin crackly coating. The topping is essentially a savory craquelin made of a mostly rice flour, and surprisingly no cheese. (For some reason I always assumed there was cheese of some sort involved, but joke’s on me!)

If the topping is too thick, it beats up the top of your mouth with every bite. Worth it for that perfect sandwich moment, but eating for the rest of the day is a bit rough.

It originated in the Netherlands where it goes by the much cooler name of tijgerbrood, or tiger bread.

A very simple dough with a sneaky bit of butter.

In hindsight it kneaded more work. (Heh.) But actually, it was a little on the crumbly side and could have used a bit more gluten development.

I went with larger hoagie rolls, but might make smaller bun versions for breakfast sammies next time.

Eek naked dough!

Recipe mystery: the topping has a large amount of yeast in it, even though it’s not supposed to do much rising.

Instead of a dough that’s rolled out and melts on top like craquelin, it’s the texture of icing that gets painted on before baking.

It’s giving maple bar. The second proofing time is just long enough for a doughnut run, brb!

Boom. The cracks are a little broader than I’m used to seeing on commercial rolls but I’ll take it!

Happy munching! Or should I say crunching?

Recipe from: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/dutch-crunch-rolls-recipe