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.

  • 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 German bread? ›

Pumpernickel: A rich dark bread made with 100% rye, originating in the northern areas of Germany and one of our most famous breads. Pumpernickel is baked over a long period of time at low temperatures, and often served as hors d'oeuvres with cucumbers or fish.

What is the special bread in Germany? ›

Pumpernickel

Pumpernickel is a traditional German bread that is known for its dark colour, dense texture, and distinctive flavour. It is made from a mixture of rye flour, whole rye grains, and sometimes a small amount of wheat flour, as well as water, salt, and sometimes molasses or caramel colouring.

How is German bread different from American bread? ›

Bread in Germany, on the other hand, contains less additives and preservatives due to age-old baking traditions, strict food laws and rigorous quality standards for bakers. The USA has liberal laws for the application of pesticides.

What is the most delicious bread in the world? ›

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

What is the number one bread in the world? ›

Roti Canai is a famous flatbread originally found in Malaysia. It is a pan-fried bread. The bread from Malaysia has secured 4.9 stars. The second one in the list of the top breads of the world is the Colombian bread known as pan de bono.

Which country eats the least bread? ›

Another surprise is that China, with its population exceeding 1.4 billion people, comes in at around just 5.83 kilograms (almost 13 pounds) of bread per capita per year, and the second most populated country in the world, India, eats the least amount of bread, coming in a 1.75 kilos (or almost four pounds per person) ...

How many types of bread are there in Germany? ›

German bread and baked goods

According to the German Bread Institute, over 3,000 different types of bread and other baked goods are sold in Germany every day. This breadth of choice is world-beating, and has been recognised as part of Germany's intangible cultural heritage since 2014.

What do Germans eat on bread? ›

The German bread and butter for breakfast is... well, bread and butter! Lightly toasted or freshly sliced, you add a generous spread of butter or margarine and then pick your topping. As a topping, Germans like it sweet, like jams, marmelade, Nutella or honey.

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 name of German dark bread? ›

Kommissbrot (transl. commissary bread) is a dark type of German bread, baked from rye and wheat flours with sourdough, that was historically used for military provisions. It usually has a boxy shape and not much of a crust, and is noted for its long shelf life.

Why does German bread taste better? ›

Flour: German bread is typically made from a variety of whole-grain flours, which gives it a dense and hearty texture, while American bread is often made from refined flours, which makes it lighter and softer in texture.

Why does German bread taste 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 bread do Germans use for sandwiches? ›

In addition to a half-dozen or so types of German meats, I picked up a loaf of Kovala Bread's “Landbread,” their take on German Landbrot, a naturally-leavened country bread made with both wheat and rye. Since a Wurstbrot is a type of Butterbrot, the next thing to do is to spread butter on the bread.

What is the famous dish of German bakery? ›

11 things you're sure to find in a German bakery
  • Brötchen (bread rolls) ...
  • Brezel (soft pretzel) ...
  • Vollkornbrot (whole grain bread) ...
  • Milchbrötchen (milk roll) ...
  • Croissant. ...
  • Käsekuchen (cheese cake) ...
  • Mohnkuchen (poppy seed cake) ...
  • Bienenstich (bee sting)

What is a famous German bakery item? ›

German desserts
NameDescription
Fasnacht (doughnut)
Frankfurter BrentenTraditional tea biscuits from Frankfurt am Main, made from marzipan dough
Frankfurter KranzButtercream based cake representing a crown of kings.
FranzbrötchenA small, sweet pastry, baked with butter and cinnamon.
57 more rows

What type of bread do Germans eat for breakfast? ›

Answer: Breakfast in Germany is usually with bread rolls or slices of whole wheat or rye bread with any kind of jam or marmalade, nougat cream or with salami, ham or cheese slices.

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