Overnight German Brötchen

100% plain wheat flour

with 20% light rye flour	with 40% wholewheat flour

100% plain wheat flour

with 20% light rye flour

Traditional German Brötchen, or bread rolls, are renowned for having a crackly and crisp crust with a soft and fluffy interior. Great to enjoy them smothered with homemade jam or cheese for breakfast, with a slice of cold cut or liver pate for lunch, or even serve them as a dinner roll for mopping up sauces.
Baking rolls with overnight proving is easy and stress-free. The dough is kneaded and shaped the evening before. It is then left to rest in the fridge and proves slowly overnight. In the morning, the rolls can be taken straight out of the fridge and baked. If they ain’t puffy enough, simply leave them to prove a little longer outside the fridge. You can take some of the Brötchen out of the oven after 10 minutes of baking, leave them to cool completely and then freeze them. When needed, thaw the frozen rolls on a baking tray for 10 minutes and bake them at 200C400F degrees for about 15 minutes. This way you can easily have your fresh homemade Brötchen anytime you like! If you want to give your bread rolls the professional bakery look, then brush them with a cornstarch glaze. Cook 2-3 grams of cornstarch, roughtly 1 teaspoon, with 100 ml of water and brush the Brötchen before baking and after 10-minutes again.
I have baked 3 batches of these Brötchen with different kinds of flour. The first batch I used 100% plain wheat flour, 2nd batch with 80% plain wheat flour+20% light rye flour, and the 3rd, I used 60% white wheat flour+40% wholewheat flour. Personally I prefer the one baked with rye.


300 ml Water at 20C/68F (330 ml if using wholemeal flour) 6 g Fresh yeast 10 g Sugar 500 g Plain flour (or replacing 200 grams with wholemeal flour) 20 g Olive oil 10 g Sea salt

Pour water into a mixing bowl and dissolve the yeast and sugar in it. Add the flour and olive oil and mix for 3 minutes on speed 1. Then switch to speed 2 and knead for another 7 minutes. After 5 minutes, add the salt and finish kneading.
Shape the dough into a ball, cover and leave to rise at room temperature for two hours.
Divide the dough into 8 even pieces, each weighing about 105 grams. Flatten the dough portions and roll them up tightly into long rolls. Dust the rolls with flour and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Pull up the edges of the paper so that the rolls support each other.
©angiesrecipes Cover with a clean kitchen cloth and additionally cover with an upside-down baking tray.
Leave to rise in the fridge at 5C/41F for at least 10 hours. If they have not risen enough in the morning, simply leave them to rise a little longer at room temperature.
Preheat the oven with a pizza stone to 240C/470F. Transfer the bread rolls on the pizza stone and turn the temperature down to 220C/430F. Bake for 20-25 minutes until they are golden brown.

100% plain wheat flour

with 20% light rye flour

100% plain wheat flour

with 40% wholewheat flour

with 20% light rye flour

5 comments:

Tom 10/2/26 13:57: ...Angie, this sure looks like a hardy roll!
David M. Gascoigne, 10/2/26 14:05: Yesterday I bought Rosemary Ham and Havarti cheese. Perfect for this roll.
Veronica Lee 10/2/26 14:27: Crisp crust, fluffy inside--these Brötchen look bakery-perfect! 😋
Lola Martínez 10/2/26 14:51: Que maravilla de panes, como me gustaría probarlos, son preciosos y deben estar buenísimos.
DEZMOND 10/2/26 14:59: The burnt ones look like you baked them in a pizza oven. I bet the hubby was happy to smell the aroma of them baking around the house.