What's in a Name? Tiger Bread, Giraffe Bread or Dutch Crunch - Tiger Bread Recipe (2024)

What’s in a Name?

Tiger Bread, Giraffe Bread or Dutch Crunch

– Tiger Bread Recipe –

For the wellinitiatedtiger bread fans amongst you, it will be apparent from my photos that my bread was neither stripy (as in tiger bread) or patchwork (as in giraffe bread), it was in fact very pale and mottled, and that is my fault completely, as with the absence of rice flour in the pantry and with it being Sunday (limited shop opening hours), I blithely said “rice flour, shmice flour – corn flour will do”!! However, what this bread lacked in stripes and patches was more than made up in flavour, it WAS indeed JUST like a “proper” loaf of tiger bread and was delicious. The texture and taste was exactly the same as the tiger bread I buy from my local supermarket bakery, but much better…….with a better crust I thought. It sliced like a dream and had a subtle sesame flavour, which gives a good tiger bread its growl. I hadn’t chosen to make tiger bread, it was what the “Baking Gods” chose for me when I randomly opened a page from a pile of bread cookbooks, as part of dashing Dom’s (Belleau Kitchen) Random Recipeschallenge.

Tiger bread – what’s in a name; well, Sainsbury’s recently changed the name from tiger bread to giraffe bread, after a letter from ayoungcustomerand a subsequenton-linepetition asking it to be changed – it seems that bread naming is a VERY serious business! The naming of this bread becomes even more fascinating, and here’s what I found out when I delved into it deeper:

Tiger bread

Origin:

Place of origin Netherlands

Tiger bread (also sold as Dutch crunch in the USA, tijgerbrood or tijgerbol in Netherlands) is the commercial name for a loaf of bread which has a unique mottled crust. Within the United States, it is popular in the San Francisco Bay Area (as “Dutch crunch”), but it is not well-known elsewhere.

Crust:

The bread is generally made with sesame oil and with a pattern baked into the top made by painting rice paste onto the surface prior to baking. The paste dries and cracks during the baking process. The rice paste crust also gives the bread a distinctive flavour. It has a crusty exterior, but is soft inside. Typically, tiger bread is made as a white bread bloomer loaf or bread roll, but the technique can be applied to any shape of bread.

Other names:

The name originated in the Netherlands, where it is known as tijgerbrood or tijgerbol (translation: tiger roll), and where it has been sold at least since the early 1970s. In the USA, it is generally sold as “Dutch crunch”, though recently, some stores have begun to sell it as “Dutch crust”. In the UK, supermarket chain Sainsbury’s markets the product under the name “giraffe bread”.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But back to my bread now and where I found the recipe. Having piled all my bread cookbooks onto a table, I selected one at random and was pleased to have grabbed the book “Traditional Bread Making” (Discover the art of creating classic and speciality breads) by Eve Parker.I was pleased as the book was a present for Christmas and I have not had time to make anything from it yet, even thought it’s a lovely little book. My random page was “73” and at first I was disappointed as I wanted to make the recipe on page 72, which was a tasty Cheese and Potato Rolls recipe…….but, I didn’t cheat, and Tiger Bread it was. The bread was made today and we enjoyed it as part of a light lunch (our main meal this Sunday is tonight) with a delightful new recipe I will be sharing soon, English Garden Salad with Cheese and Eggs.

The recipe was excellent, as the crumb inside was spot-on, but DON’T do what I did, do NOT use any other flour other than rice flour, otherwise you will have an anaemic mottled finish as I did – even if the crumb, texture and taste was amazingly good, it was a shame to lose the “stripes” or “patches” that would have made my bread look even better.I am sending some of this bread over to Dom as a virtual “get well soon” offering, as he is languishing in hospital right now and I hope he gets better very soon……..that’s all for today, DO try this recipe, it is excellent – see you later with my new salad recipe, some more 5:2 diet recipes and much more, have a relaxing Sunday, Karen.

With thanks to Garden Trading for sending me the lovely Bread Binin Clay (£28:00) for review – I love the style, colour and size of it – it is perfect for all my home-made bread requirements. I will be featuring it again, but wanted to highlight in today’s post as I am storing my tiger bread in it!