Sunday breakfast in Germany: Bread rolls recipe with yeast

To jump straight down to the bread rolls recipe with yeast, click here!

If you are looking for an addition to your Easter breakfast table, click here for sweet Easter bread.

While an open rye bread sandwich is the standard German breakfast on weekdays, a German Sunday breakfast typically offers a choice of breads, fresh bread rolls probably being the most popular. With this quick and easy bread rolls recipe with yeast, you can bake your own German-style breadrolls right before breakfast so they will be really fresh.

In fact, I bake these breadrolls even on weekday mornings when I have not had time to bake sourdough bread on the previous day. But in that case I reduce the rising time dramatically, so they don´t get as tender and fluffy.

How to cure a German´s homesickness

When you ask a German what food he misses most when travelling abroad, the answer is likely to be “bread”. Germany has over 100 traditional sorts of bread, and in addition a lot of non-traditional ones that owe their existence to the creativity of a local baker. Traditional bread sorts, cakes and pastries do not vary with region as much as other food in Germany, but some are regional. For example, while pretzels are everywhere in Bavaria, you will seldom see them in the north. But you can buy delicious Franzbrötchen, a buttery pastry with cinnamon, that you can hardly ever find in the south.

The bread that Germans miss so much is, for the most, sourdough rye bread (no problem when visiting Scandinavia, Russia or Poland). But German bread rolls are also different to those of most other countries. We do have sweet or sweet-ish, soft rolls as well, called Milchbrötchen (Milk Rolls), Rosinenbrötchen (Raisin Rolls) or Campingbrötchen (Camping Rolls – don´t ask me why). But regular German breakfast rolls are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. However, Im giving you instructions for both soft and crispy rolls from the same dough.

Bread rolls recipe with yeast – so easy, it´s great for baking with children!

These bread rolls are just slightly salty, so you can eat them with butter and jam or other sweet spreads, but also with cheese, cold cuts etc.. My children love them with butter and honey!

They are really simple, so there is not really much left to say. Just try them for yourself!

This quick and easy bread rolls recipe with yeast is so easy that children can help with it. Older children can measure, younger ones can mix the dry ingredients, and even toddlers can already shape the rolls (you can still re-shape them in secret, if necessary).

Quick and easy bread rolls recipe with yeast

Ingredients

500 g flour (all purpose flour, or even better white spelt flour)

7 g dried instant yeast (one sachet in Germany, but I don´t know how it is sold where you live)

3/4 teaspoon of pure salt

200-250 ml lukewarm water (if in doubt about the temperature, better make it too cold than too warm)

Optional: Some linseed, sesame, poppy or sunflower seeds

What to do

Put all dry ingredients (except the optional seeds) in a wide bowl and mix them well with a spoon.

Add the water – stir it in thorougly with a spoon, and begin to form a dough, There will probably be dry flour left in the bowl, so add, stir and knead bit by bit until all of the flour is part of your dough, but it feels dry and soft, not sticky. (If you find that you have added too much water, add a little more flour – but again, just a little bit at a time!)

Knead the dough thorougly on the table for several minutes.

Put it back into the bowl and cover the bowl with a clean cloth. Leave it to stand at room temperature.

Let the dough rise for 60 minutes if you want your rolls soft, 20-30 minutes if you want them crispy. If you are in a real hurry, just 5 – 10 minutes while you pre-heat the oven (see below). A few minutes more or less don´t matter, but do not let yourself be tempted to prepare the dough in the evening and bake in the morning, that could easily make the dough bitter.

From this point onwards, you need to do different things for soft or crispy rolls!

Click here for crispy rolls as well as very quick rolls. For soft rolls, keep reading here!

Soft rolls

Knead you dough again and make one “sausage” of it. Divide that into 12 parts.

Now shape 12 balls of dough, kneading each one a little, and put them on a lined or buttered baking tray. Brush a little water on each ball and strew them with seeds if wanted.

Put the tray in the oven and turn it on to 50 degree Celsius.

After 20 minutes, turn the heat up to 200 degree Celsius and bake for 15 minutes.

Crispy rolls and very quick rolls

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degree Celsius during the dough´s rising time.

Do not knead your dough again. Just divide it into 10 parts and shape them into balls with only as much kneading as needs to be done to achive the ball shape.

Put them on a lined or buttered tray. Push them flat a little so they don´t rise too high while baking.

Put into the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.

Note that is you make very quick rolls, of course they won´t be as fluffy as they should ideally be. But they are still good for a quick breakfast before school!