Crusty German Rolls | Brötchen
Brötchen are deliciously crusty bread rolls – a staple on German breakfast tables. By following my recipe and helpful tips, yours will taste just like the ones from a bakery!
One of my fondest childhood memories is when I would go to the bakery with my dad on Saturday mornings to buy freshly baked German rolls, known as Brötchen.
If you have ever tasted them, you might be familiar with the golden-brown color of the crust, the sweet aroma, and the audible crunch when you take a bite.
The German word for bread is Brot, and Brötchen literally means ‘little bread’. However, depending on the region, the rolls have different names, such as Wecken, Schrippen, Knüppel, and Semmel.
What makes this brötchen recipe special
The ingredients
For the most part, the ingredients in this recipe are very basic baking ingredients:
- Flour: for this recipe, we are using regular all-purpose flour.
- Instant yeast: instant dry yeast is easiest to use and perfect here.
- Salt: just a pinch of sea salt really brings out the traditional flavor of the rolls.
- Fat: I like to use homemade butter for the best flavor.
- Sugar: You only need a pinch to ’round out’ the flavor, and to help activate the yeast.
- Malted barley flour: this ingredient, also known as diastatic malt powder, is completely optional. I highly recommend using it, though, because it really helps the brotchen turn out very light and airy.
Substitutions and variations
- Flour: you can use a variety of flours here: you can use different ratios of whole grain flour to white flour or make them all whole grain (they will be denser then). I have also successfully used spelt, rye, or einkorn flour.
- Additions: these crusty rolls are perfect with toppings such as sesame seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, or cracked grains. You just gently press them on after shaping them. Or you throw those seeds right into your dough so they will be on the inside.
- Vegan rolls: I really like the taste of butter but you can use a mild oil instead, such as avocado oil or canola oil.
- Barley malt: if you don’t have it, don’t worry. A bit more sugar will also do.
Helpful kitchen tools and equipment
Here are some kitchen tools that I find helpful for all types of baking:
- Stand mixer: this helps to knead the dough in the beginning.
- Kitchen scale: even though I am adding US measurements, I highly recommend using a kitchen scale that shows you the weights in grams and kilograms
- Bench scraper: this nifty tool is handy for moving and separating the dough.
- Bread lame: this is essentially a razor blade on a nice handle. It helps with the scoring of the rolls
- Half sheet pan: if you don’t already own one, I highly recommend you get a baker’s sheet pan. The measurements of a half sheet pan are 18 inches x 13 inches.
- Silicone baking mat: even though parchment paper works just as well, I really like the reusable non-stick silicone mats.
How to make brötchen
- Make the dough. Start by dissolving the yeast in warm water (about 110°F.), then add it to the bowl of your stand mixer. Use the paddle attachment to combine it with the other ingredients.
- Knead the dough. Place the dough ball onto a work surface and knead it by folding and stretching a few times. Form it into a smooth ball by gently stretching the top and folding under. Then place it into a lightly greased mixing bowl.
- Slowly ferment the dough (first rise). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in your fridge for 10-12 hours. If you’re in a rush, you can let the yeast dough rise at room temperature for about 2-3 hours.
- Shape the dough into rolls. With a knife or bench scraper, divide the dough into 8 equal parts and shape each into small balls or oval rolls. Place them on a lined baking sheet.
- Cover the rolls with a kitchen towel and let them rise again. Move them to a warm place until they have almost doubled in size (depending on the temperature, that can take 2-3 hours).
- Score the tops of the brötchen with a lame, then bake. Just before you bake the bread rolls, place an oven-safe bowl or cast iron pan with a handful of ice cubes in it on the bottom rack of the preheated oven.
How long to bake crusty rolls
Bake the German rolls for about 20 minutes at 400°F., or until golden brown. You can turn the sheet pan halfway through the baking time to ensure even browning.
Serving suggestions
Obviously, you can enjoy them any way you want! However, here are some traditional ways that Germans eat their brötchen:
- Breakfast: you can find fresh bread rolls in every bread basket on German breakfast tables. Germans cut them in half horizontally, smear butter on them, and top them with jams, honey, quark, sliced cheese, or cold cuts. Basically, they eat them as open-faced sandwiches.
- Snacks: crusty bread rolls are the perfect holders for sausages, Leberkäse, schnitzels, or even all sorts of fried or marinated fish. These days, you can even find complete sandwiches with cheese or some meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and so on.
- Supper: the traditional German supper is often very similar to breakfast, except that it tends to be savory. Again, Germans put butter on their dinner roll and then add sliced cheeses, cold cuts, or spreads.
Storing
These are actually best eaten fresh! By that I mean, on the day that you bake them.
If you would like to keep them for just another day or two, you can keep them in a paper bag. You can also wrap them in plastic but then they will get soft and chewy.
To crisp up day-old rolls, you can spritz them with some water and briefly bake them in the oven at 180˚F for 5-10 minutes.
Uses for stale rolls
There are a lot of ways to use the bread when it is no longer fresh!
- use it to make bread pudding
- dry it out completely to make breadcrumbs
- many recipes, such as meatloaf, meatballs and frikadellen call for stale rolls that you soak in milk
- make some delicious German bread dumplings (Semmelknödel)
Make-ahead instructions
The best way to make brötchen ahead is to fully bake them. Then, while they are still a bit warm, simply place them in a plastic bag or freezer bag, squeeze out as much air as possible, and freeze them for up to 4 months.
When you’re ready to eat the rolls, spritz them with a bit of water and bake them at 180˚F for about 10 minutes.
Technically, you can freeze the unbaked rolls as well as the yeast dough before shaping. However, the results aren’t quite as good as when you use freshly made dough.
Brötchen | Crusty German Rolls
Ingredients
- 300 ml warm water 10 ounces
- ⅛ tsp sugar
- 7 g instant yeast 2.5 teaspoons
- 500 g all purpose flour 3 cups
- 13 g salt 2 teaspoons
- 1 TBSP diastatic barley malt
- 15 g soft butter 1 tablespoon
- 1 tsp oil for the bowl
Instructions
- Dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water. Set aside.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, salt, diastatic malt, and soft butter.
- With the dough hook attached, turn the mixer to slow and add the sugar-yeast water.
- Keep mixing at low speed until the dough comes together (5-10 minutes).
- Place the dough ball onto a work surface and knead by hand by folding and stretching a few times. Form into a ball by gently stretching the top and folding under.
- Grease a large bowl with the extra oil.
- Place the dough ball first face down, then flip so that the entire dough ball is coated with oil.
- Cover with plastic and place in refrigerator for 12 hours or overnight.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400˚-450˚F. Place a heat proof dish in the bottom of your oven.
- Divide dough into 8 equal portions and shape each into a round or oval ball.
- Place rolls onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mat.
- Cover the rolls with a towel and let rise until they have almost doubled in size (depending on the temperature, that can take 2-3 hours).
- Gently score each roll with a lame or knife.
- Place the rolls in the hot oven. Immediately add a handful of ice cubes or 1 cup of water to the dish in the oven to create steam. Quickly close the oven door.
- Bake for about 20 mins or until golden-brown. You can turn the cookie sheet half-way through the baking time to ensure even browning.
- Remove the rolls from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack.
Notes
- use a metal or cast iron dish for the ice cubes, as a glass dish will shatter
- you may have to experiment with this recipe until you get your desired consistency since different flours behave differently
Nutrition
Pin For Later
Dear Anja, I love watching your videos!!! I very much want to make the German crispy rolls. I just started using Einkorn flour to make bread and I’m wondering do I need to adjust the measurements to make the rolls when I use Einkorn flour? Can you please help me with this?
Herzliche Gruesse! Renate
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the videos. Thank you!
Einkorn behaves very differently from regular wheat flour. It absorbs less liquid and the dough is much softer and stickier, so you can’t do a straight 1:1 swap in this recipe.
If you’d like to try it, start by reducing the liquid a bit and expect a looser dough. The rolls may also not hold their shape quite the same way and won’t get quite as tall and airy.
It can absolutely work, it just needs some experimenting with hydration and handling ~ Anja
I’m actually really excited to make these for my dad. He was in the army and went to Germany and since then he talks about items he misses having. Well I’m a pastry chef. So I’m going to have fun making him them.
Sounds great! Happy baking ~ Anja
I spent time in and around Munich a year ago. I was so anticipating fresh brotchen with breakfast and dinner. Not a single meal served with brotchen. I picked up the closest thing I could find at a bakery and was so disappointed. I spent a year in Stuggart back in the 70s and brotchen was always available. I shall embark on learning to make my own.
It really depends on where you go (traditional places will still serve Brötchen) but ironically, even Germans now often prefer bagels etc. ~ Anja
Do you have a different link or brand of Malted barley flour? Amazon says the one you linked is currently unavailable and does not know if it will be restocked.
This one is available: https://amzn.to/3EhuoTL but you can use others as well ~ Anja
How do I get the crispy shiny come out too soft
You can bake them a little longer or use slightly higher heat to make them crispier. For shine, you can do an egg wash. Also, ovens sometimes vary in temperature ~ Anja
Thank you for sharing Anja. I’ve been looking for a German bread roll recipe with the pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I ate them for breakfast during my trips to Munich. They are not round like your rolls. More square. Can I use your recipe? Also, I’m trying to consume less white wheat. Should I use a mixture of wholewheat flour and rye flour? If so how much? And how much pumpkin and sunflower seed should I add? Many thanks! Can’t wait to try.
You get the squarish shape by rolling the dough into a rectangle and cutting smaller squares instead of rolling the dough pieces. Yes, you can use whole wheat and rye but I prefer spelt (either white or wholegrain) since it behaves and tastes similar to wheat ~ Anja
Anja — I baked these for the first time, and when I scored my rolls, they completely deflated. 🙁 I was hoping they would puff up in the oven, but they came out more like round disks and not the fluffy ovals as in your photo, despite me having shaped them into ovals before they sat for 2 hours. How do I keep them from deflating and when I score them and then coming out of the oven as almost-flat disks?
They also didn’t come out with a nice browned, shiny crust. FYI: I have an electric oven and baked them at 425F for 25 minutes (they were still quite light at 20 minutes).
Every oven and every type of flour behaves a bit different. You might also want to try a different batch of yeast. Please do not give up, your next batch could be a winner ~ Anja
Excellent.
Though I was surprised about using diastatic malt and cold proofing together.
Diastatic malt is used to accelerate fermentation. The amylase make more sugars available faster which boosts the yeast activity.
Cold proofing is used to decelerate fermentation to get more flavour.
Wouldn’t liquid malt, which has no amylase, used for its flavour, be a better choice?
Good question! I know that bakers use the powdered version but you should be able to use liquid malt ~ Anja
Hello Anja….. I followed your Brötchen recipe to the T…. Very easy to follow, thank you for that….Everything looked good….. when baker was finished Brötchen came out hard and crust dry looking… not as fluffy looking as yours… any suggestions? Just wondering what I did wrong. Thank you!
I don’t think you did anything wrong. The variables are the flour and your oven, as they all behave a bit differently. In your case I recommend adding more liquid (water), extending the rise time, and slightly lowering the oven temperature ~ Anja
Have tried this 3 times now, latest time I’ve used strong white bread flour instead of plain flour which feels like it may have had a positive impact.
Haven’t managed to get the airy fluffiness of a Brötchen yet, is there anything you can suggest to make it lighter/fluffier? I don’t mind ordering some conditioners on Amazon if they can help!
I would try AP flour, keeping the dough in a warmer place, and letting it rise longer. Just know that most commercial bakers use other ingredients to make their rolls super fluffy ~ Anja
Use something like Italian Tipo 00 Chef’s flour (not the pizza flour). American AP and bread flours use hard red winter and spring wheats respectively and have too much gluten for Brötchen, whereas German breads use a soft white wheat for Brötchen.
German 550 flour is available on Walmart.com I just ordered 2 bags!
Sounds great and thank you so much for sharing that ~ An ja
German 550 flour is available on Walmart.com I just ordered it last week. Im pretty excited about baking some brotchen!
Yes, please post the sourdough version. Thanks. Also, The social media icons displayed on the left side of the page are annoying and unnecessary. They block out what you are trying to read. Please change that format.
How much more sugar do you recommend using if there’s no barley malt? Thanks!
About 1 tsp ~ Anja
Hallo Anja!
As a German, I tried your recipe a couple of time to provide real German Brötchen to my family. However, every time the Brötchen were more gray in color and not nicely golden. Should I try egg wash or is the type of flour the reason? Also, would it be better to use bread flour instead? Sometimes the dough is too soft and spreads more than rise.
Vielen Dank und viele Grüße!
Yes, you can experiment with bread flour and/or the egg wash. Typically, the diastatic malt will make the Brötchen golden. Viel Spaß beim Backen ~ Anja
What do you consider to be a dash of sugar?
Probably less than one teaspoon ~ Anja
These buns are absolutely amazing! We have a student from Germany and she says they taste authentic; just like she has back at home. Don’t rush the fermentation and rise times – be patient and they will turn out just right.
Yay! I am so glad to hear that ~ Anja
Hi Anja, I’m on a journey to master German rolls. Just baked yours with Jovial AP Einkorn. All was good, but the oven spring was not what I expected. A little too dense overall. Have you baked with that flour? Any tips?
What flour are you using?
Thanks!
Joerg
I haven’t tried the rolls with einkorn flour but since it has less gluten, they might be a bit more dense. Also know that many (German) bakeries use all sorts of additives and leavening agents to make those rolls extra fluffy. I use regular AP flour ~ Anja
I noticed that there were some comments about “oven spring” or dense rolls. From my experience…the refrigerator can be actually TOO cold. If it is, it effectively stops the fermentation process… leading to possibly under-proofed dense rolls. I had to look for a “warmer” location in the refrigerator.
Oven spring can also be affected by the type of flour and the hydration. I recommend trying the recipe a few times to figure out what works best ~ Anja
Have you ever tried letting the cold ferment part be after the dough has been divided into rolls? I just wondered so then you could take them out and bake for breakfast without waiting the 2-3 hours.
Yes, you could do that. Or freeze the baked rolls, spray them with a bit of water, and put them in a hot oven for 10-15 mins ~ Anja
Help with altitude adjustments. I can’t get them to come out quite right. They taste good and the family likes them but I can’t get a good browning on them. They come out done but aren’t brown at all.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any experience with high-altitude baking. Have you tried increasing the heat in the last 5-10 mins or using a broiler? Anja
Try to brush rough egg over it, realy thin
Well, I have been trying to find a place to buy German Brotchen as it is a tradition in our family to have them for breakfast on Christmas Eve, and sadly our German market and bakery just went out of business. I tried these, and although the flavor was good, they didn’t come out at all like German Brotchen. They were dense, didn’t rise enough, and while fermenting in the fridge developed a “skin” that was hard to score. They were like heavy disks when I was finished. Also, I tried to follow exactly the recipe, and added a handful of ice to the dish in the oven, and it immediately shattered. Maybe state to use a metal dish or put the ice water in before preheating the oven would work, but definitely not the way it is stated. I have yet to finish cleaning up the shards. Maybe some added directions about that would be helpful
Thank you for alerting me about the glass dish, I will update my post. BTW, I use cast iron since it is indestructible. As for the consistency, some flours behave differently than others, so you may have to make this recipe a few times. Also, most bakeries in Germany use dough conditioners and other additives to get the super-fluffy texture ~ Anja
What are these mystery dough additives commercial bakers use – you keep referencing them. I’d like to get my hands on those.
Commercial bakers often use dough conditioners, additives to keep the dough from sticking to the dough hook, additives to correct the color that results from that etc. ~ Anja
Hi Anja! You list malted barley flour and diastatic malt powder in the ingredients list, so I got both. But the recipe only has the diastatic malt powder. What do I do with the barley flour?
I may use them interchangeably. You can freeze what you don’t need and use it later ~ Anja
Gehe ins Bakerei 0600 uhr und kaufe 8-10 brotchen dann nach die Metzgerei gehen und viel fleisch (schinken, gelbwurst, blutwurst, etc.) kaufen…dann ist es zuruck zu mein haus und kaffee machen…..alles ist leckerlich – Das ist das LEBEN 🙂
Sounds great!
Have the dough in the fridge now! My husband was stationed in Germany for 2 years and was just taking about Brotchen and having them with breakfast. The airiness made room to fill with eggs and ham. Hope I can recreate for him in the morning.
Nice! Hope you’re going to have a great Frühstück with Brötchen ~ Anja
Hi.
I baked this earlier today. I love the recipe ! Wish I could send a photo.
The dough was fine, smooth and manageble. The taste was great too ! My friends enjoyed it.
Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Yay! That makes me so happy to hear! Thank you for sharing ~ Anja
These bread rolls look delicious! I cannot wait to try and make them. I am sure they would go well with a nice soup on a rainy day. Thank you for sharing.
I am so glad you like this recipe! And yes, these rolls would be perfect with a bowl of hot soup ~ Anja
Thanks of the recipe. I used King Arthur flour and used your exact measurements and times. While they tasted like back in Germany, I was not able to make them “krusty”… they had more of a rubbery/flexible surface… any idea why?
Different flours, different ovens etc can produce different results. Make sure your oven temperature is calibrated. Sometimes it helps to open the oven door a bit towards the end to let steam escape so that you can get a crispy crust ~ Anja
Hello
I am so excited to try this recipe! I’m wondering how I can make this a sourdough recipe using my starter instead of yeast.
I am so glad you like this Brötchen recipe! You could add some sourdough starter, maybe around ¼ cup but then you will need to decrease the water accordingly. Happy baking ~ Anja
Hello, I made this recipe, they tasted ok, but the interior was too dense as well as the exterior. I was hoping for a bit lighter, flaky exterior. What did I do wrong?
I am so glad you tried this recipe. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to give a remote diagnosis but I would say to let the rolls rise longer and in a warmer spot. Hope this helps ~ Anja
Hi Anna,
Enjoying your excellent recipes and lessons so much! How much sugar do you use in place of the barley malt?
Thank you!
Michelle
Thank you so much! You can use just about 1 tsp of sugar to replace the barley malt ~ Anja
I am obsessed with bread making as of late. Can’t wait to try these 😉 Thnaks for the recipe!
I am sure you will love how easy this recipe is ~ Anja
They look so delicious! Can’t wait to try the recipe myself!
Hope you get to make them very soon ~ Anja
We have been looking for a good roll recipe and this one looks like a clear winner! Delicious looking.
Thank you! Have fun baking them ~ Anja
Oh my goodness! I have amazing memories of bratwurst and Brochen as a teenager when I spent the summer in Germany. I cannot wait to try these!!
Yay for all those great memories and happy baking ~ Anja
Yum! Looks delicious!
Thank you so much ~ Anja
I’ve never tried German best rolls, but they look so delicious! Can’t wait to try them now.
Nice! I hope you get to bake them soon ~ Anja