One of things I always buy when I visit the Netherlands is Tiger Bread. I hadn’t tried it before living in Germany and the closest thing we have found to a soft white British loaf, but better. As its about a 50 minute one way trip to the Dutch border from Duesseldorf, I have had several attempts to make it. A trip to Roermond normally ends up with a visit to the outlet mall and to get the excellent Churros and melted chocolate in the old town so it just as well we don’t go too often!

When I started this website I asked a Dutch friend if he had any Dutch family favourite recipes he would like to post. He was struggling to think of any recipes he would call typically Dutch. Maybe its because he has a French wife and most of the cooking at home is French. He has banned me from posting Chips/Pommes/ Fries with Satay sauce. This is my favourite Dutch recipe currently and hopefully we will be able to add a few more great Dutch classics soon.

Lots of the UK supermarkets are now selling Tiger bread in the UK and it is becoming a firm favourite there. The German’s style of breads have much more texture and flavour. Having grown up with soft white bread it is one of the things all us Brits crave.

If you haven’t tried Tiger Bread it is a soft white loaf with a crackle glaze on top. It should probably be called a Leopard bread, but as Tigers are most peoples favourite big cat it is probably why it is called that. There has been lots of discussion of UK baking forums as to how to make the crackle glaze. I have tried a few of them but they didn’t really work. So I dusted off my Dutch knowledge, not really I used google translate, and checked out a few of the Dutch Website recipes. In Dutch Tiger bread is called Tijgerbrood. In this version I have combined a classic British Bloomer recipe, with a mix of two of the recipes I found on Dutch cooking websites. You make the main loaf as normal and when you are doing the second rise you add the crackle mixture for top. The cracks are caused by using rice flour in the crackle glaze it doesn’t have any gluten in it so it cracks when it rises. You can find rice flour in Health food shops.

Hope you like this recipe and that it works for you too. We like to eat ours with jam or pate or as a cheese and ham sandwich.

 

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