Your German Wines Are Begging for Bauernbrot 

Walking into a German bakery is a bread lover’s dream: loaves, rolls, and pastries of all shapes and sizes. While I’m drawn to the stacks of hearty, seeded pan loaves and chorus of Brötchen, I’m flat-out seduced by the massive wheels of chestnut-colored Bauernbrot, stood up like cross sections of timber and top crusts deeply crevassed like craggy tree bark. 

These loaves can be so large that bakeries sell them by weight or quarter. No matter the size, Bauernbrot demands to be taken home and shared. It makes the perfect centerpiece for an evening of wine, cheese, cured meats, and other toppings — the ideal Abendbrot.

Bauernbrot, Meet Abendbrot

Abendbrot, which means “evening bread,” is dinner in Germany. Historically, and still sometimes today, lunch is the main hot meal for Germans. So the evening meal is a more casual array of cold items centered around bread. Think of it however you like: fridge-grab, mood board, or (excuse the term) girl dinner, with various spreads, meat, cheeses, and spreads. Just make sure your bread is the star attraction. 

During a recent stint studying bread baking at the Akademie Deutsches Bäckerhandwerk in Weinheim, we students were served a classic and delicious Abendbrot every evening. It’s a great way to eat after a long day of work, especially during the summer. Abendbrot is also the ideal situation for lingering with friends over several bottles of wine, nibbling away at thin slices of Bauernbrot smeared with toppings.

Bauernbrot’s mild complexity makes it ideal for pairing with wine. The slight tang from the sourdough, alongside the earthiness of the rye and layered, caramelized aromas from the deep crust, demands attention without overwhelming. The bread’s brightness pairs well with high-acid wines. But add a topping, from simple salted butter to rich smoked liver sausage, and the wine pairing grows more complicated — and more fun.

I encourage you to bake a loaf, pick up a few wines, invite friends over, and try this yourself. 

On Your Marks, Get Set…

Bauernbrot is, as the name suggests, a rustic “farmer’s bread.” Bakeries and home bakers produce countless variations of this hearty, tangy bread across the German-speaking world. It’s usually a mixed-grain loaf, leaning towards rye. It may also be infused with Brotgewürz (literally “bread spice” and typically a combination of coriander, caraway, aniseed, and fennel). You can recognize Bauernbrot by its deep, hazelnut-skin color, disc shape, and pattern of random, deep cracks on top.

Don’t let the steps in the recipe scare you. It’s mostly hands-off. Yes, you need a sourdough starter, but added yeast makes the proof more predictable. I make the sourdough and pre-dough at the same time, usually the evening before, and then I make and bake the dough the next morning. The high percentage of rye flour makes this loaf last several days longer than a normal wheat-based loaf would. 

For those who think summer is not the time to stand in front of a blazing oven, I assure you that the effort is worth it. Bauernbrot makes the perfect picnic bread: sturdy, versatile, and delicious with a huge array of toppings — and wines. 

I’ve only given measurements in grams because accurate measurements are critical and that’s how Germans would do it.

Recipe

Yield: Makes one 900 g loaf.

Time: 16-18 hours total, 30 minutes of active time.

Sourdough or Sauerteig

160 g medium rye flour (or Roggenmehl 1150)

160 g water, room temperature

30 g ripe sourdough starter (either a wheat- or rye-based starter)

Mix the rye flour, water, and sourdough starter together in a bowl until no dry flour remains. Cover the bowl and set it at room temperature for 12-14 hours. Make the pre-dough immediately after you make the sourdough. After 12-14 hours, the sourdough should look swollen, mostly flattened out, smell pleasantly sour, and have the texture of a dense foam.

Pre-dough or Vorteig

100 g bread flour (or Weizenmehl 550)

60 g water

A pinch (scant 1/8 teaspoon) instant yeast

Add the bread flour, water, and yeast to a bowl. Mix together until no dry pockets remain. Using your hand, gently knead for 30 seconds to ensure it’s well mixed. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 12-14 hours.

Main Dough or Hauptteig

140 g medium rye flour

100 g bread flour

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1 teaspoon instant yeast (or 6 g fresh yeast)

160 g water, room temperature

All of the sourdough

All of the pre-dough

Method

Add all the ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a dough hook. Mix at the lowest speed for 4 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl and dough hook, then turn the mixer to medium-low speed (speed 2 on a KitchenAid) and knead for 8 minutes. Cover the bowl and let rise at warm room temperature (74-78F/23-26C, ideally) for about 60-90 minutes until it has risen to just about 1.5 times its original size.

Generously dust the inside of a round banneton or proofing basket with rye flour. (If you don’t have a banneton, you can generously dust a tea towel with rye flour and use it to line a medium mixing bowl. Don’t be shy with the flour.)

When the dough has risen, generously dust your work surface with rye flour. Scrape the dough onto the floured surface using a wet bowl scraper or spatula. Do not flour the exposed part of the dough. Dough with this much rye flour does not behave like wheat-based bread dough, so work quickly and with a lot of flour on your hands. Flour your hands, grab the round loaf at 12:00, and gently fold it into the center. Don’t pull the dough, or you might tear it. 

Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat the grab and fold.  Repeat this process until you have a somewhat tight ball. Try not to get much dry flour inside the loaf as you shape it. Once it’s in a relatively round shape, flip it over onto some flour (seam-side down) and tighten up the ball a bit. Then, place the dough into the floured banneton with the seam-side down. Cover the dough and let it rise somewhere warm for about 45-60 minutes until it looks puffy, and when you poke the dough, the indentation only springs back less than halfway.

While the dough rises, heat your oven to 500F/260C with a rack in the middle. If you have a combo cooker or Dutch oven, put it in your oven while it heats. (If you’re using a Dutch oven, be sure it’s fully heated, at least 45 minutes.)

You can bake this loaf with or without a Dutch oven: The more steam you give the bread, the deeper the cracks become, which looks much more classic. Steam helps achieve these deep cracks by keeping the surface of the bread from drying out too much, allowing the bread to expand and the cracks to deepen.

Dutch oven: (My preferred method.)

Gently invert your dough (with the seam facing up) onto a piece of parchment paper. Use the parchment as a sling and carefully place it in the Dutch oven. Rye-based doughs are very fragile — they’re more like a foam — so try not to deflate the loaf. Close the lid and bake at 500F/260C for 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 425F/220C and bake for 10 more minutes. Remove the lid and bake for 30-40 more minutes (50-60 minutes total baking time) until the bread is a deep chestnut brown.

No Dutch oven:

Very carefully and gently invert your bread onto a parchment-lined baking sheet (so the seam faces up) and place it in the oven. Bake at 500F/260C with steam for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 425F/218C and bake for an additional 40-50 minutes until chestnut brown. Keep the oven closed as much as possible.

Remove from the oven, and place on a wire rack to let cool completely. Wait at least 12 hours before cutting open; this helps the flavors develop and the moisture equalize. The crumb should be fairly dense (but not heavy) and moist, and the loaf should have an earthy, mild flavor with a slight sourness. This bread lasts for 3-5 days, and you can also slice it and freeze it well-wrapped for up to 3 months.

The bread’s sourness and the earthiness of the rye flour make it a great canvas for hearty toppings: liver sausage, slices of smoky Speck, some Kräuterquark (a slightly tangy soft cheese-like product extremely popular in Germany. I describe it as somewhere between cream cheese and cottage cheese and prefer to mix it with chives, dill, and fennel fronds), or a slice of Alpine cheese. I love it with a thick spread of salted butter.

The earthy rye notes, deeply roasted crust, and slight sourness of the loaf mean that this bread should be paired with wines with noticeable acidity—nothing too delicate. But the toppings change the game.

Toppings + Pairings

I recently hosted Patrick Rauber, a Chicago-based German wine collector, for Abendbrot. Over several hours, we tasted several German wines with various toppings.

With salted butter:

Ökonomierat Rebholz Weisser Burgunder Trocken 2021, Pfalz

The zippy acid and golden delicious apple notes of this Weissburgunder balance the sourdough tang and cut through the creamy butter.

With Alpine-inspired Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese from Wisconsin:

Weingut Saalwächter Weisser Burgunder 2020, Rheinhessen

The rainwater-washed chalky minerality and waxy mouthfeel of this nervy Weissburgunder cut through the pineapple-tinged, nutty cheese.

With a smear of homemade Kräuterquark :

Richard Östreicher Silvaner “Maria im Weingarten” 2022, Franken

Mineral, dense, and intense, this striking Silvaner’s pronounced sweet fennel aroma harmonizes with similar flavors in the herbed cheese and tangy bread.

With a slice of cured, lightly smoked Alpine-style sausage:

Weingut Josef Seckinger Riesling “Vom Löss” 2023, Pfalz

This was the most surprising pairing of the night. Not a wispy Riesling, Seckinger’s entry-level bottle brings a complex, almost funky, earthy note to rich russet apple and Comice pear notes, which marry with the fatty, slightly smoked cured sausage and tangy bread.

With smoked liver sausage from Gene’s Sausage Shop:

Braunewell Wein & Sekt, Grauer Burgunder “Orange” 2022, Rheinhessen

This bottle drinks more like a brooding deep rosé, with soft edges, strawberry skin aromas, light tannins, and a mild softness that melds with the soft, fatty, lightly smoked liver sausage.

Topped with smokey, funky Speck:

Weingut Beurer Trollinger Trocken 2022, Württemberg

Trollinger, known as Vernatch-Schiava in its original home of Südtirol-Alto Adige, seemed like a natural pairing with Speck. It didn’t disappoint. Beurer’s Swabian rendition brings tingly acidity, vibrant cherry fruitiness, and refreshingly approachable tannins to the party. They cut through the fatty meat and complement the sourness of the bread.