Has anyone made Dutch Crunch Bread? I tried that today using Antilope's Vienna bread as the base. I thought I would make sandwich rolls but I underestimated the size and actually made rolls. Couple of thoughts - when I made the Vienna bread, it got really stiff and difficult to knead for the machine towards the end. And didn't get a very big rise with the first one. I don't recall it being so stiff before. The only thing different I did this time was that I used lactose-free milk vs. soy milk, and used 1/4 cup less of flour.

As for the crunch part - I used the recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 min a day which called for 2/3 cup of rice flour, 1/2 cup water, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tablespoon instant yeast. After letting it rise, it was really runny. There was no way I would be able to "smear it around" the rolls. I ended up adding more rice flour - like almost 1/2 -3/4 cup more - before I could get it thick enough to smear it around.

And then I got confused about how long to bake the rolls as the original Vienna bread was for loaves/baguettes. I set the timer for 40 min but I think next time I will shoot for 30 min as they got a nice crusty "dark" brown on the top and the bottom.

I did eat one of the rolls after they had cooled. Very very crunchy top, nice crumb inside. I think next time I make the Dutch Crunch, I'm going to try it with a challah base.