Tiger bread (Dutch: Tijgerbrood), also known as giraffe bread, is a bread of Dutch origin that has a mottled crust.
![]() Tiger bread rolls | |
Type | Bread |
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Place of origin | Netherlands |
Main ingredients | bread, Rice paste |
The bread is generally made with a pattern baked into the top made by painting rice paste onto the surface prior to baking.[1][2][3] The rice paste that imparts the bread's characteristic flavour dries and cracks during the baking process. The bread itself 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.
The name originated in the Netherlands, where it is known as tijgerbrood[4] or tijgerbol (tiger roll), and where it has been sold at least since the early 1970s.[citation needed] The US supermarket chain Wegmans sells it as "Marco Polo" bread.[5] In the San Francisco Bay Area it is called Dutch Crunch.[6]
In January 2012, the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's announced that it would market the product under the name "giraffe bread", after a three-year-old girl's parents wrote to the company to suggest it.[2]