Tiger bread


Tiger bread is the commercial name for a loaf of bread that has a mottled crust.

Crust

The bread is generally made with sesame oil or cheese, which gives it a distinct aroma, 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, and where it has been sold at least since the early 1970s. The US supermarket chain Wegmans sells it as "Marco Polo" bread.
In January 2012, the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's announced that they would market the product under the name "giraffe bread", after a three-year-old girl wrote to the company to suggest it.
In the San Francisco Bay Area it is called Dutch Crunch.