With all my beer making, I’ve learned that I am generally a fan of German-style beers. I’m particularly a fan of the Dunkelweizen and Märzen variety. Now that Oktoberfest is over, and I’ve come out of my jealousy coma, I decided I want to make pretzels. This will go good with my beer, no? So I did. I remembered that I had found a pretzel recipe a while back that I had bookmarked. So with great efforts of patients, as I was assisted by the sugared up Leif, I made pretzels.
Ingredients
2 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup Milk (lukewarm)
1/2 tsp salt
1 package dry bread yeast
1 tbsp butter (at room temperature)
sea salt (for the top)
For the Soda Water
4 1/4 cup water
3 tbsp baking soda
Instructions
- Mix yeast with some drops of milk and sugar; let it raise for 15 minutes at room temperature.
- Mix this dough with salt, flour, milk and butter; knead it until you get a smooth dough. Let it raise again for 1/2 – 1 hr at a warm place. The dough should double.
- Sprinkle flour on a baking board and knead thoroughly with your hands, then form a roll and cut it into 6 parts of the same size (or 3 parts if you want to make large pretzels).
- Of each dough piece make a 12″ or longer roll; ends should be thinner than the middle.
- Form pretzel and let them raise for another 15 minutes.
- Place it in the fridge and let it rest for 1 hour.
- Before the hour is over bring 1 liter water to a boil and dissolve 3 tbsp baking soda (not at once, slowly because the soda will cause the water to become quite bubbly).
- Place each pretzel into the boiling soda water for about 30 seconds; with a slotted spoon take them out, let them drip and sprinkle coarse salt on top.
- Place them on a greased baking tray (don’t use baking paper), and bake them for 15 minutes (or 18 minutes for larger size pretzels) at 425? F in oven. They are done when they show a golden brown color.