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Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige

Schüttelbrot

South Tyrol's crisp shaken rye flatbread

South Tyrol's crisp rye flatbread, protected since 2020: a very soft dough of rye and wheat flour with fennel seeds, shaken on a round board into thin, knobbly discs and baked until crisp and dry.

EU-codifiedSources checked in October 2026
Course
Pizze e PaniPizza & Bread
Serves
6
Hands-on
25 min
Cooking
1 h 40 min
Resting
1 h 45 min+
Image coming soon

In breve

In short

Also called Südtiroler Schüttelbrot, Schüttelbrot Alto Adige, Schüttelbrot Alto Adige IGP, Südtiroler Schüttelbrot g.g.A., Schüttelbrot PGI, pane croccante alla segale and Schüttelbrot crispbread.

  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan
  • Rye flour, at least half of the flour, with soft wheat or spelt flour, water, salt, yeast or sourdough, and fennel seeds, which are always there.
  • Caraway, blue fenugreek, anise or coriander may join the fennel; malt and vegetable fat are allowed, not required.
  • The pieces of very soft dough rise for 20–100 minutes at 25 °C–40 °C, then are shaken on a round board until they spread thin.
  • Baked at 160 °C–250 °C for at least 20 minutes into a flat, irregular disc 3 cm–35 cm across and 3 mm–1.5 cm thick.
  • A dry bread, with no more than 11% water: at home it is baked until it snaps cleanly, and checked on the scale.

La provenienza

Where this recipe comes from

Schüttelbrot is the crisp rye flatbread of South Tyrol, the province of Bolzano. It owes part of its name to the way it is shaped: once the pieces of soft dough have risen, each is shaken, schütteln in German, on a round wooden board, turning and bouncing until it spreads into a thin, knobbly disc, which is then baked until it is crisp. It is first mentioned in the Tyrolean bakers' ordinance of 1610, which itself refers to older rules, and medieval writings already count long keeping among its qualities. On isolated farms high in the mountains, families laid in stores of food to see them through the winter and the busiest weeks of the harvest and the summer pastures, and bread that kept was one of them. Fennel seed is always in it, once also as an aid to digestion; blue fenugreek, a fixture of old Tyrolean farm gardens, anise, coriander and caraway are used too. Hard right through, it is broken rather than cut, with a firm blow to the middle of the disc, and eaten as a merenda, a South Tyrolean snack, with speck, cheese and the province's wine, or spread with horseradish sauce beside a local beer.

It has been a PGI since 2020, under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1084, on the application of the Associazione Südtiroler Schüttelbrot IGP of Bolzano; no objection was lodged. Its specification, amended by an Italian decree of 7 November 2023 and published by the EU in 2024, is the recipe: rye flour, at least half of the flour; soft wheat or spelt flour; salt; yeast or a sourdough of the bakery's own (at least 4%), or both; and fennel seeds, which are always there, with blue fenugreek, caraway, anise or coriander as the baker chooses; malt and vegetable fat are allowed. After kneading, the dough rests; the pieces rise for 20 to 100 minutes at 25–40 °C, are shaken thin, baked at 160–250 °C for at least 20 minutes and left to cool. The result is a flat, irregular round 3 to 35 cm across and 0.3 to 1.5 cm thick, slightly sour or not, holding no more than 11% water, that keeps for up to eighteen months. The amendment raised that limit from 4–6% and made sourdough optional, since several traditional recipes never used it. Only bread made in the province of Bolzano under the specification may carry the name. The specification sets no quantities beyond its shares of rye and of sourdough, so this page follows a South Tyrolean home recipe, listed below, scaled to six discs and raised with yeast alone; the pieces rise for the specification's 20 minutes at least, longer than that recipe's 10. At home the drying is done in the oven, never in the open air: the discs are baked until they are dry right through, and the page gives a weight to check them by. Made at home, it is a home version, not the PGI.

Provenance
The dish itself is protected by an EU specification (TSG, PDO or PGI) that fixes how it is made.
Defined by
European Union
Reference
PGI ‘Südtiroler Schüttelbrot / Schüttelbrot Alto Adige’, Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1084; specification amended by the Italian decree of 7 November 2023 (Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 266 of 14 November 2023), communicated in OJ C/2024/5047
Sources
Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige

Ingredienti

Ingredients

6 servings

The pre-dough (doesn't change with servings)

The dough (doesn't change with servings)

For the cloths and the board (doesn't change with servings)

Equipment

  • Kitchen scale accurate to 1 g
  • Thermometer, for the water and the warm places
  • A large bowl and a sturdy spoon, or a stand mixer with a dough hook
  • A dough scraper
  • Two linen or cotton cloths, and a large lidded box (or a proving box) for a warm, humid rise
  • A round wooden board about 30 cm across, for the shaking
  • Two baking trays of about 45 cm by 35 cm, and baking paper rated to at least 220 °C
  • Wire rack
  • A tin or paper bags, for keeping

Preparazione

Method

Allow about 4 hours on one day, most of it waiting and baking. The pre-dough rises for an hour; then the dough is mixed (switch the oven on now), rests 10–15 minutes and is divided into pieces of 150 g, which rise for 20 to 100 minutes, as the specification allows. A home oven bakes two discs at a time, 30 minutes a tray, so the six pieces go in three rounds 30 minutes apart, each pair shaken while the tray before finishes, and the last piece is shaken by minute 85 of its rise, with 15 minutes to spare; then they cool, and any that are not yet dry right through go back in at 160 °C. You need 300 g of rye flour and 100 g of wheat flour, plus plenty of rye flour or bran for dusting. The batch makes five discs about 20 cm across and a smaller sixth.

  • 25 minhands-on
  • 1 h 40 mincooking
  • 1 h 45 minresting, at least

The pre-dough

The specification raises the bread with yeast, a sourdough or both; this page uses yeast alone, and begins with a soft pre-dough of rye flour, water and yeast.

  1. Hands-on 3 min

    Dissolve 8 g of fresh yeast in 100 ml of water at 30 °C, then stir in 100 g of rye flour to a soft dough.

    Check A soft, smooth paste with no dry flour left.

    Tip Our guide: use a bowl that holds at least three times as much, and cover it.

  2. Rest 1 hTemp 30 °C

    Leave it, covered, for an hour at about 30 °C.

    Check Risen and domed, full of bubbles, with a yeasty smell.

    Tip Our guide: use the oven with only its light on, or a proving box, and check the place with a thermometer. If you use the oven, take the bowl out at the end of the hour: the oven is heated next.

The dough

  1. Hands-on 5 minOfficial text

    Knead the ingredients together into a dough.

    Check A very soft, sticky dough, more paste than dough, evenly mixed with no dry flour; it will not form a smooth ball.

    Tip Our guide: in a large bowl, dissolve the other 8 g of yeast in the 340 ml of water at 30 °C. Add the pre-dough, 200 g of rye flour, 100 g of wheat flour, the salt and the spices, and mix for about 5 minutes with a sturdy spoon, or on low speed with a dough hook, until even.

    Tip Our guide: rye dough has little gluten to develop, so it is mixed rather than kneaded at length. It is meant to be very soft, with 1.1 l of water to each kilo of flour: do not add flour to firm it.

  2. Hands-on 2 minTemp 210 °C–220 °C

    Heat the oven to 210 °C–220 °C, top and bottom heat, no fan, with a shelf in the middle. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

    Check By the time the first pieces have risen, the oven has heated for at least 30 minutes.

    Tip Our guide: each tray should take two discs about 20 cm across side by side: about 45 cm by 35 cm. Use baking paper rated to at least 220 °C.

  3. Rest 10–15 minOfficial text

    Leave the dough to rest.

    Check A little puffed, with a few bubbles on top.

    Tip Our guide: 10–15 minutes, covered, in the bowl.

Dividing and the rise

The specification has the pieces rise for 20 to 100 minutes at 25 °C–40 °C. On this page they rise in a warm, humid place, and a home oven bakes two discs at a time, so the six pieces go in three rounds 30 minutes apart; the last piece is shaken by minute 85 of its rise.

  1. Hands-on 10 min

    Dust a cloth well with rye flour. With floured hands and a floured scraper, break off pieces of 150 g, round them roughly and lay them on the cloth, well apart. What is left makes a smaller sixth piece: weigh it and note its weight.

    Check Five pieces of 150 g on the scale, and a sixth of about 100 g–120 g, its weight noted.

    Tip Our guide: dust the tops with flour too, so that the cover does not stick. Wheat or rye bran does as well as flour.

    Tip Our guide: remember the order in which you lay them down: they are shaken in that order.

  2. Rest 20 minTemp 30 °COfficial text

    Leave the portions of dough to rise, on suitable equipment, for 20 to 100 minutes at a temperature of 25 °C to 40 °C.

    Check The first pieces have risen a little and softened, and their floured tops are starting to crack.

    Tip Our guide: cover them with a second cloth and keep them at about 30 °C in a humid place: a large lidded box with a bowl of just-boiled water inside, checked with a thermometer. Lift the lid if it passes 35 °C, and renew the water once.

    Tip Our guide: shake the first two pieces after 20 minutes, counted from when the last piece is laid down; they go in the oven about 5 minutes later. Each later pair is shaken during the last 5 minutes of the bake before, so the second pair rise about 50–55 minutes and the last pair about 80–85: the last piece is on the board by minute 85, 15 minutes inside the 100 allowed.

    Tip A piece that has risen longer spreads more easily, and needs less shaking.

Shaking and baking, two discs at a time

  1. Hands-on 5 minOfficial text

    Once risen, shake the portions of dough, so as to reduce the thickness of the risen dough.

    Check Two flat, irregular rounds about 20 cm across and about 5 mm thick, side by side on the paper.

    Tip Our guide: dust a round wooden board about 30 cm across, the size of a pizza, with rye flour, and put a piece in the middle. Hold the board flat in both hands and move it in small, quick circles, with a little up and down, so that the dough spins and spreads into a thin disc. If it sticks, lift an edge and dust under it.

    Tip Our guide: tilt the board over a paper-lined tray and slide the disc off, as from a peel. Shake the second piece and lay it beside the first.

    Tip The shaking leaves the surface uneven and knobbly: that is how it should look.

  2. Cooking 30 minTemp 210 °C–220 °COfficial text

    Then bake them at 160 °C–250 °C for at least 20 minutes.

    Check Browned at the edges, firm and dry to the touch; each disc lifts off the paper in one piece and sounds hollow when tapped underneath.

    Tip Our guide: 30 minutes at 210 °C–220 °C, top and bottom heat, on the middle shelf.

    Tip Our guide: if only one disc fits on your tray, bake two trays at once, on the shelves just above and below the middle, and swap them after 15 minutes. Then shake each next pair onto sheets of baking paper laid on the work surface, and slide each sheet onto a tray as soon as its baked disc is off it.

  3. Cooking 1 h

    Five minutes before the tray in the oven is done, shake the next two pieces onto the second tray. Lift the baked discs onto a wire rack and put the new tray straight in, for 30 minutes. Then shake the last two onto the first tray, emptied when its discs went to the rack, and bake them the same way.

    Check Six discs on the rack; the last piece was shaken no later than 85 minutes after the dividing ended, and never after 100.

    Tip Our guide: if a round runs late, do not let the last pieces pass 100 minutes: shake them at once and put their tray on a second shelf just below the one baking; when that tray comes out, move theirs to the middle and give it its full 30 minutes.

Cooling and drying

The protected bread is dry: it holds no more than 11% water. At home the drying is done in the oven, by baking the discs until they are dry right through; they are never left to dry in the open air. These checks tell you when they are done.

  1. Rest 15 minOfficial text

    Then leave them to cool.

    Check Cool, hard and rigid: lifted by one edge, a disc does not droop. Weighed whole, a disc from a 150 g piece comes to about 70 g or less, and the smaller disc to no more than 47% of the weight you noted for its piece. Only then break a corner off: it snaps with a dry crack and is dry right through.

    Tip Our guide: on a wire rack, at least 15 minutes after the last tray; the earlier discs cool while the others bake. A hot disc is still soft and still giving off steam, so judge it only when cool.

    Tip Our guide: at about 70 g, a disc from 150 g of dough holds no more than about 11% water, the specification's limit. The figure is an estimate from the usual moisture of flour; a drier flour makes the check stricter, not looser.

  2. Cooking 10 minTemp 160 °C

    Turn the oven down to 160 °C, leaving the door ajar for a few minutes until it has cooled to that. Put back any disc that still bends, or weighs more than the check above (weighed with its broken corner), straight on the shelf, for 10 minutes; then let it cool and check it again.

    Check Every disc rigid, snapping cleanly, and no heavier than the check above.

    Tip Our guide: 160 °C is the lowest baking temperature the specification allows, so the oven stays within its temperature range.

    Tip Our guide: keep the cooled discs in a tin or a paper bag in a dry place. A disc that turns soft goes back in for 10 minutes at 160 °C. Mould grows in warm, damp conditions: throw away any disc that shows mould, whole, since in a porous bread it reaches below the surface.

Press “I’m here” on the step you are on, and again when it is done.Tap the pin on the step you are on, and the tick when it is done. Timers keep running while you scroll.

Da sapere

Good to know

KeepingConservazione
A bread made to be stored: dry, with no more than 11% water, the protected Schüttelbrot keeps for up to eighteen months. Source
VariantsVarianti
  • With sourdough and wholegrain flours: A farmhouse version adds a little sourdough to the yeast and uses wholegrain rye and wholemeal wheat flour; the pieces rest on bran until their tops crack, about 30 minutes, and bake for about 30 minutes at about 180 °C. Source
  • With anise or coriander: Fennel seeds are always there; besides caraway and blue fenugreek, the specification allows anise and coriander to flavour the bread. Source
  • Smaller or larger discs: The specification allows discs from 3 cm to 35 cm across and from 3 mm to 1.5 cm thick. Source

Errori comuni

Common mistakes

  • Making the dough firm, like a wheat bread dough. It is very soft, more paste than dough, so that it spreads when it is shaken.
  • Leaving out the fennel: the specification makes fennel seeds a fixed part of the recipe; the other spices are a choice.
  • Flattening the pieces with a rolling pin. They are shaken on a round board: the shaking gives the bread its name and its uneven, knobbly surface.
  • Shaking the pieces before they have risen for 20 minutes, or after 100: that is the specification's window.
  • Taking the discs out while they still bend in the middle. The protected bread holds no more than 11% water, and a damp disc can turn mouldy in store.
  • Using cumin for caraway: in the specification ‘cumino’ means caraway, Carum carvi, as its 2023 text was corrected to say.

Fuori dall'Italia

Cooking it outside Italy

  • Only bread made in the province of Bolzano, under the specification, is Südtiroler Schüttelbrot or Schüttelbrot Alto Adige. Anywhere else the same method makes a home version, not the PGI.
  • The recipe this page follows asks simply for rye flour, not wholegrain rye; a light or medium rye flour is our choice. The specification sets no grade, and wholegrain rye makes the farmhouse variant.
  • Blue fenugreek, Trigonella caerulea, is Brotklee or Schabzigerklee in German, sold dried and ground as a light green powder of the whole herb. Common fenugreek, Trigonella foenum-graecum, is a different plant and not the specification's: if you cannot find blue fenugreek, leave it out.
  • Caraway is Kümmel in German; it is not cumin.
  • Fresh yeast is sold in small compressed cubes. If you can only find instant dried yeast, use a third of the weight, about 2.7 g for each 8 g.

Il menù continua

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