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    Home » Recipes » Yeast Breads

    Published: Feb 26, 2013 · Modified: Aug 6, 2017 by Alexandra Azary · This post may contain affiliate links

    Confession #112: I love a Good Challenge... Dutch Crunch Rolls aka Tiger Bread

    Jump to Recipe·★★★★★5 from 1 review

    Usually, I decide to bake something just because it sounds good to me at the moment. If you know me well enough, you'll know that anything with chocolate typically falls in that category. Plus, there's the constant stream of other random ingredient combinations I come up with that I convince myself are going to be the next best thing. But occasionally, I make something more for the sake of the process than anything else. Tell me that macarons are devilishly tricky to make, or that caramel sauce can't be made without cream, and I'll definitely be itching to take on the challenge just so I can feel super-victorious  if when I get it right.

    Dutch Crunch Rolls aka Tiger Bread from Confessions of a Bright-Eyed Baker

    The first time I heard about Dutch Crunch Bread - or Tiger Bread, as it's otherwise known, I seriously thought it was The. Coolest. Thing. Ever. I had no idea what it tasted like, and I don't think I really cared. It just looked awesome, and I was dead-set on making it. Except, I was just the teensiest bit worried that the topping wouldn't turn out right, and it wouldn't look like tiger bread at all. It happens...

    But then I pulled these rolls out of the oven, and I felt like some sort of baking genius, even though these are incredibly easy to make and the topping takes all of 5 seconds to whip together. From what I've learned, the trick is just to make sure you make the topping thick enough, and then give the rolls a nice thick coating. Baking isn't impossible, you just need to know all the tricks. :) Do everything right and you end up with super-soft rolls that have a crispy, tiger-like crust. Pretty awesome, don't you think?

    Dutch Crunch Rolls aka Tiger Bread from Confessions of a Bright-Eyed Baker

    Before I leave you with the recipe, can we please agree on something? This should never have been named Tiger Bread.  Last time I checked, tigers have stripes... But apparently we need a super-cute 3-year old girl to tell us this. Go figure.

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    Dutch Crunch Rolls

    Dutch Crunch Rolls aka Tiger Bread from Confessions of a Bright-Eyed Baker
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    ★★★★★

    5 from 1 review

    Dutch-Crunch Topping puts a unique twist on the classic Soft White Dinner Rolls, giving them a crispy crust with a fun giraffe-like appearance.

    • Cook Time: 15 minutes
    • Total Time: 15 minutes
    • Yield: 6 jumbo rolls 1x

    Ingredients

    Scale

    Soft White Rolls

    • 1 ½ cups milk
    • 1 ½ tablespoons butter
    • 3 ½ - 4 cups all-purpose flour
    • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
    • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
    • 1 tablespoon salt

    Dutch Crunch Topping

    • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
    • ½ cup warm water
    • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
    • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
    • ¼ teaspoon salt
    • ¾ - 1 cup rice flour*

    Instructions

    1. Combine the milk and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for about 1 minute, until the milk is warm and the butter has melted. Stir together, and set aside to cool until lukewarm.
    2. In a large bowl, whisk together 3 ½ cups flour with yeast, sugar and salt. Add the lukewarm milk and butter mixture and fold in with a spatula until everything is combined in a somewhat sticky dough. If it is very sticky, add a bit more flour. Otherwise, turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead, incorporating the remaining ½ cup flour only as needed, until the dough is elastic, tacky, and smooth.
    3. Shape the dough into a ball with a smooth top surface and place in a greased bowl roughly double its size. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise until doubled in size (for me this took about 2 hours).
    4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Punch down the dough and divide it into 6 equal pieces**. Shape each piece into a ball by tucking the outer edges underneath and pinching them together as you would a twist-tie. Place the balls of dough pinch-side down on the prepared baking sheet, spaced apart from each other. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise for another 30-45 minutes, until puffy.
    5. Preheat oven to 425°F. Prepare the dutch crunch topping by combining the yeast, warm water, sugar, vegetable oil, salt, and ¾ cup rice flour in a medium bowl. Beat together well to form a smooth, thick "batter" that drips off your whisk in thick clumps. Add up to another ¼ cup rice flour if needed to achieve the desired consistancy. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes.
    6. Spoon the topping in equal amounts over the fully risen rolls. As you do so, it will start rolling over the sides of the rolls. Once you've used it all up (it will seem like a lot, but use it all), scoop up any excess topping that has dripped onto the baking sheet and use it to cover any areas of the rolls left exposed.
    7. Bake the rolls in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until golden-brown on top. Cool briefly before serving.

    Notes

    *I used white rice flour in this recipe, but brown rice flour should work as well. However, be sure to NOT use sweet or glutinous rice flour.

    **The 6 rolls I made with this recipe turned out very large - definitely not individually-sized, unless perhaps you're making a large sandwich. Feel free to make the rolls smaller if you'd like (and make more).

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    White Rolls adapted from Nigella Lawson via The New York Times

    Dutch Crunch Topping from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum
    via The Daring Kitchen

    Digiprove sealCopyright protected by Digiprove © 2013

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    1. Dawn says

      April 14, 2023 at 9:40 am

      I loved your recipe for the Dutch Crunch Topping!! I live in a very small town in TN and finding the Rice Flour is not an option so I blended 2 cups of white rice into a powder to make my own Rice flour and the topping turned out fabulous!!

      Reply
      • alexandra says

        April 20, 2023 at 8:50 pm

        That is awesome to hear!

        Reply
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    Profile photo of Alexandra (Alex) Azary, author of Bright-Eyed Baker.

    Hey There - I'm Alex! Thanks for stopping by! Here's what you can expect to find on Bright-Eyed Baker: lots of baked goods and other sweets made from scratch, plus the occasional coffee recipe, mixed drink, or kitchen how-to post. My goal is to show you that from-scratch baking - gluten-free, dairy-free, or otherwise - doesn't have to be intimidating, no matter how busy life gets. Learn more about me.

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