10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (2024)

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Germany is a bread-loving country and its bakeries produce hundreds of varieties. Here are authentic recipes for 10 of the most popular German-style breads.

Many of the doughs are left to ferment overnight to enhance the flavor and baking properties. With a little planning, this takes no extra hands-on time and results in a superior loaf.

The ingredients are simple—rye flour, wheat flour, yeast, water, salt, a sour, and sometimes seeds—it's how they are mixed and in what proportion to each other, as well as how they are shaped that gives each type a unique character and taste.

  • 01 of 10

    German Bauernbrot – Farmer's Bread

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (1)

    This bread's flavor is enhanced by the addition of 1/4 cup sourdough culturetothe baker's yeast which is used to help it rise. This German bauernbrot or farmer's bread is a half-day project. To get the hard crust, use steam in the oven.

  • 02 of 10

    German Vollkornbrot – Whole Rye Bread

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (2)

    This bread is surprisingly easy to bake at home. It is madewith 100 percent rye flour and rye berries with some sunflower seeds and fermented with sourdough. Vollkornbrot is loved in northern Europe, especially Germany and Scandinavia. Learning how to bake this bread is well worth it for the wholegrain bread lover.

  • 03 of 10

    German Seeded Bread

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (3)

    If you are looking for a dense, whole-grain loaf, this one is about the closest it comes to tasting like a German bakery bread. Based on Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breadbook, it uses 100 percent whole grains, along with pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame seeds for a dense, moist loaf.

  • 04 of 10

    German Roggenbrot – Sourdough Rye Bread

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (4)

    This weizenmischbrotor light rye bread is made with 45 percent rye flour and 55 percent white flour with an overnight sponge and sourdough starter. A strong aroma and pleasant sour taste make this dough traditional. Turn it into rolls or a loaf, whichever you prefer. You also might like graubrot, a whole-grain light rye bread made with an overnight sponge.

    Continue to 5 of 10 below.

  • 05 of 10

    German Fladenbrot – Turkish Flatbread

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (5)

    Although this is not a German bread, it is found in Turkish stores and kiosks all over Germany. Fladenbrot is a flat white bread, covered with nigella seeds, and has a particular taste not found elsewhere. It can be round or elongated and is simple to make. This bread is related to the Italian ciabatta and calls for an overnight sponge. It's delicious withtzatziki. Another delicious German white bread iskartoffelbrotorpotatobread.

  • 06 of 10

    German Brezeln – Soft Pretzels

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (6)

    Now you can have authentic brezeln or pretzels outside of Germany with this recipe. The dough is easy to make and the only tricky step is the lye bath, using food-grade lye. No matter what anyone says, you cannot get the same taste without it.

  • 07 of 10

    German Schwarzwaelder Kruste – Black Forest Bread

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (7)

    This bread is a 20 percent rye mischbrot, or mixed-flour, sourdough bread, very common in southern Germany. Chewy, but light in flavor, it has all the characteristics of typical German brot.

  • 08 of 10

    German Sweet Breads and Rolls

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (8)

    Sweet fillings like jams and fruit are very common in German sweetbreads, and most are flavored with vanilla and lemon zest. They run the gamut of a braided sweet bread made with white flour or whole wheat to sweet giant pretzels and Danish pastries.

    Continue to 9 of 10 below.

  • 09 of 10

    German Brotchen and Other Rolls and Buns

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (9)

    For breakfast or brunch, there's no treat like fresh German hard rolls known asbrotchen. Also known as weckeor semmel, they are to Germany what croissants are to France.

    Other popular buns include sunflower seed rolls made with rye and white flours and a little sourdough and wreath-shaped breadsthat are popular for parties or other celebrations. Indispensable for breakfast aremilchhornchen, similar to a soft butter yeast roll.

  • 10 of 10

    German Haferflockenbrot – Oatmeal Bread Two Ways

    10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (10)

    If you are a fan of oatmeal bread, this is the recipe for you. You can enjoy it made with whiteflour combined with whole-wheat flouror with100 percent whole-wheat flour. The whole-grain version does best with an overnight rest in the refrigerator, while the regular version takes just three hours from start to finish. Try both and see which one you like better.

10 Delicious German Bread Recipes for Your Home Oven (2024)

FAQs

What is the most popular bread in Germany? ›

Pumpernickel. This dark brown bread made of rye is perhaps the most famous of German breads and difficult to get in its original version outside of Germany. Pumpernickel is baked over a long period of time at low temperatures.

What makes German bread different? ›

German bread is unlike any other bread known to Europe. It is dark, chewy and dense, composed mainly of whole grains, such as rye, spelt, and millet. Wheat is taking a back-seat compared to other countries, where it is the dominant grain, resulting in lighter, whiter and starchier (and less healthy) bread types.

What makes bread super soft and fluffy? ›

Milk powder.

Instant milk powder makes bread dough super soft and fluffy and also helps to give it a good rise.

What is the famous dish of German bakery? ›

Marmorkuchen, or marble cake, originated in Germany in the nineteenth century and is popular to this day.

What is the healthiest German bread? ›

The least caloric, nutritionally dense breads in this category are Fitnessbrot, or Vollkornbrot (whole grain breads), Zwieback (rusk) and Knäckebrot (crisp breads) which can be found at most specialty stores, supermarkets or online in the United States.

What is traditional German bread called? ›

4.6. (65)

What is the name of the dark German bread? ›

"This is a traditional, 100% rye bread that is thinly slice and eaten open-faced with cheese or sliced meats. Black bread is made from cracked rye grain, water, sourdough starter, and salt.

What do Germans call bread? ›

"Brötchen" ("Brot" is German for bread, the -"chen" is a diminutive suffix) are a staple all over the German-speaking world, but the word used to order the crusty rolls at the bakery counter vary greatly.

What is the hardest bread to make in the world? ›

Little did I know that baguettes are considered the most difficult bread to bake, and “the art of artisan breads.” For the first six months, I baked three baguettes every day, generally wondering why anyone would go to all of the trouble.

What is the most flavorful bread? ›

World's best breads: the list of winners
  • Butter garlic naan (India)
  • Nan-e barbari (Iran)
  • Pan de yuca (Colombia)
  • Focaccia di Recco col formaggio (Italy)
  • Baguette (France)
  • Naan (India)
  • Piadina Romagnola (Italy)
  • Tarte flambée (France)
Oct 4, 2023

How do bakeries get their bread so soft? ›

Experienced bakers learn tricks to make their bread products more longer-lasting and softer. A lot of commercial bakers will never admit it but they use fats such as olive oil, dairy products like milk and yogurt, and even vinegar if they want to you to believe that their loaves are “sourdough” loaves.

Does letting bread rise longer make it fluffier? ›

Does Rising Bread Affect Its Texture? For a fluffy bread texture, the key is to let the bread rise long enough.

How to make bread more light and airy? ›

Adding dry milk powder to your bread dough will help your loaf rise higher. In addition, the loaf will stay soft and hold moisture longer which again means it will last longer. It also helps brown the crust. If you want a lighter fluffier bread loaf just add 2 Tbsp of dry milk to the flour per loaf of your bread.

Do Germans eat sourdough bread? ›

While in other countries the use of sourdough has substantially declined in the last century, in Germany this method kept existing in large extent because many typical breads, like the ones based on rye flour, rely strongly on the use of sourdough to develop their intense flavour and character, something that is ...

What bread do Germans eat for breakfast? ›

The top components of a German breakfast include: Brötchen (Bread Rolls) – Fresh, crusty rolls often served with a variety of toppings. Bauernbrot (Farmer's Bread) – Hearty, rustic loaf traditionally made from a mix of rye and wheat flours.

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