Staples

Tunnbröd – Swedish Soft Flatbread

Simple soft flatbread, perfect for rolled-up wraps, canapés or a packed lunch

By Sebastian·4 November 2026
A stack of soft, round tunnbröd on a tea towel
Hands on
45 min
Total time
1 h and 45 min
Makes
8 breads

Most Swedes have some kind of relationship with tunnbröd. For me it's Bregott butter, cheese and ham on a round tunnbröd, rolled up. I always thought tunnbröd belonged to the category of things not worth making yourself, that it was too hard and you needed special machines to get it right. How wrong I was! I can't describe how happy I was when the very first bread, from the very first test recipe, came out perfect.

Ingredients

  • Milk300 ml
  • Butter2 tbsp
  • Dry yeast (about 7 g)½ packet
  • Light syrup (golden syrup)2 tbsp
  • Salt1 tsp
  • Rye flour100 g
  • Strong white flour (bread flour)400 g

Method

  1. Put the milk and butter in a small saucepan and warm to 37 °C. Test it against your lip – it should feel neither warm nor cold.
  2. Stir in the yeast thoroughly. Add the salt and syrup and stir again.
  3. Pour the milk mixture and the flour into a stand mixer with a dough hook. Run on low speed and let it knead for about 5 min.
  4. The dough should be dry and fairly firm when it's done. Shape it into a ball, put it back in the bowl and let it rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
  5. Preheat the oven to 275 °C with a baking steel in the upper middle of the oven. I know not everyone has a baking steel, so use what you have: a baking tray (it will probably warp a little), a large ovenproof dish turned upside down, or cook them like tortillas in a large frying pan on the stove.
  6. On a well-floured surface, shape the dough into 8 equal balls, ideally using a scale so they're exactly the same size. Roll them out one at a time until really flat, about 2–3 mm, and prick them well with a fork so they don't puff up like balloons in the oven. Bake until they just start to show a hint of colour. Take the bread out and wrap it in a tea towel straight away.
One thing that helps. Freeze them straight away and they'll be like freshly baked when you take them out.