Dec 13 2007
Pretzels
I really enjoy pretzels. They’re not quite junk food, but they’re not quite real food either, and a big soft pretzel makes a great breakfast. I made a batch of “authentic” Bavarian soft pretzels last night to a recipe I found online, and they turned out pretty lousy. There were a lot of things wrong (just from a bread standpoint, not that I’m a pretzel expert or anything), and I think the recipe is largely to blame. So here’s my revised pretzel recipe, adapting the recipe I used to take into account some of the finer points of breadmaking.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup warm water
2 tbsp. nonfat dry milk
1 tbsp. butter, melted
1 tbsp. corn syrup, glucose, or (less preferably) sugar
1 tsp. active dry yeast
at least 2 cups high-gluten hard wheat flour (e.g. bread flour)
1/2 tsp. fine salt
pretzel salt — preferably kosher salt
2 quarts (64 oz.) water
3 tbsp baking soda
Mix the water, milk powder, butter and corn syrup in a bowl. Make sure the liquid isn’t too hot, then add the yeast. Let the yeast dissolve, then add 1 cup of the flour. Stir to combine, then let the yeast proof — leave alone for a few minutes and look for tiny bubbles. Stir in 1/2 tsp of fine salt and 1 more cup of flour. This should form a manageable dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead very lightly for only a minute or two — the dough should only be worked enough to make it homogeneous. Add more flour if necessary. The dough should be tacky but not sticky. Put the dough in an oiled bowl and leave to rise for 20 to 30 minutes. Gently punch the dough down, then roll it into a sheet and let it relax for a minute before you subject it to further torment. While you wait, set the oven to 475°F, and mix the baking soda and 64 oz. water in a large pot and put on high heat.
Cut the dough into six segments. Roll one of the segments into a long rope, lengthening the rope as you go. This is an easy way to stretch the dough without fighting too much with it. Continue to work with the dough in the air until you have a tube of no more than 1/2″ diameter, with the ends thinner than the middle. Then twist the dough into the classic pretzel shape — there are pictorial guides for this all over the place if you need them. Set the pretzel on a clean baking sheet (or any other clean surface). Repeat for the other five pieces of dough.
Prepare a baking sheet with a silicone pad, high-temperature parchment paper, or a liberal greasing with shortening. Then, once the baking soda water is at a vigorous rolling boil, pick up one pretzel and drop it in the boiling water. Wait one minute, then turn over. Wait one more minute, then retrieve the pretzel with a big slotted spoon and place on the baking sheet. Apply pretzel salt judiciously. Repeat for the other five pretzels, then pop the sheet into the oven.
Between 12 and 15 minutes later, the pretzels should have browned nicely. They may appear a little mottled, because the pretzels will continue to rise in the oven, and the areas that came into contact with the boiling water will brown faster.
Remove from the oven, share, and enjoy, because in an hour they’ll be cold and disgusting.
Happy pretzeling!
EDIT: Originally, this recipe called for the pretzels to be dipped in a cold lye bath. I had said that I didn’t think a boiling baking soda solution would work as a substitute for a cold lye bath. I neglected the fact that sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) degrades into sodium carbonate (a much stronger base) at temperatures above 60°C. So a boiling baking soda bath does work, and in my personal opinion the boiling adds more to the pretzel than using sodium carbonate instead of lye takes away. The recipe now calls for the baking soda boil. I also changed the dough process a bit.