I love pretzels so I decided to make my own. I find the store bought, whole wheat pretzels to be too sweet. For some reason if its whole wheat the snacky companies figure that's its too healthy and add some sugar and call them "Honey Wheat Twists" or some nonsense like that. I enjoy regular hard pretzels and sourdoughs but they are made with bleached white flour which I like to avoid.
Pretzels are made from a basic bread dough. Their color, shine, and texture comes from a quick dip in a poaching liquid before baking. Typically this bubbly bath contains lye. The lye reacts with the surface of the dough, yellowing it. When the pretzel bakes this color deepens. Though lye is used in many food applications, it’s caustic stuff. There is food grade lye out there you can use it but you need goggles and gloves to work with it. Lots of pretzels are still made in this tradition. The way to get around using lye is to use baking soda, which is just a milder, safer alkali than lye. Adding brown sugar or malt powder in the poaching helps to give a flavor to the pretzels that is close enough to the real thing without the hazmat gear. If you're ambitious you can even bake the baking soda beforehand to intensify its alkaline qualities. Also an egg wash before baking replaces the shine that would come from a lye bath. Someday I might give lye a try, maybe when I'm also ready to cure my own olives. Until then baking soda is always ready to go in the pantry. So why mess with all that.
When I looked to the internet I found very few true hard pretzel recipes, I tried some and they were not good. Or they were really soft pretzels, best eaten soft and did not hold up the next few days, acting more like stale bread than a crunchy pretzel. After trying these recipes out the trick I learned to make these pretzels crisp is a longer, slower cooking. So I turned down the temperature dial , got comfortable on the couch and let them get snug in the oven.
Makes 24 pretzel rods or 12 large pretzel twists, I made a few of each.
The Basics:1. Mix Dough.
2. Allow time to rise.
3. Create pretzel shapes. Pretzel Art!
4. Allow time to rise.
5. Boil pretzel shapes in poaching liquid.
6. Bake and Eat!
Recipe:
Pretzel dough:
3 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. instant yeast
2 tsp. brown sugar
1 1/4 c. warm water
1 tsp. olive oil
Poaching liquid:
10 c. water
1/2 c. baking soda
1/4 c. brown sugar
Pretzel topping:
1 egg (skip this for vegan pretzels)
1 tbs. water
4 tbs. coarse salt
Method:
Pretzel Dough: Mix, Knead, Rise, Roll:
1. Mix flour, yeast, brown sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Stir in warm water.
3. Knead dough for 5 minutes or until dough is tight and springy.
4. Coat dough with olive oil and cover with plastic wrap.
5. Let rise for 1 hour.
6. Place dough on a clean surface and break off a small piece of dough.
7. Roll the small piece of dough into a rope.
8. Keep in the rope shape or twist the rope into a twisty pretzel shape.
9. Roll and/or twist the remaining dough and place on a baking sheet.
10. Cover pretzels and let rise another 30 minutes.
Poach:
1. Once the pretzels have risen bring the water to a boil in a large pot.
2. Add brown sugar and baking soda to the pot SLOWLY. If you dump the baking soda in you will end up with a bubbly mess all over your stove. I know because that's what i did, messy.
3. Once the water, brown sugar, and baking soda are mixed and boiling add a few pretzels for 20 seconds.
4. Remove from the pretzels with a slotted spoon and place on a baking sheet.
5. Boil the remaining pretzels and arrange on a baking sheet.
Top:
1. Beat the egg and water in a small bowl.
2. Using a pastry brush, brush the egg wash onto the tops of the pretzels.
3. For vegan pretzels simply skip this step and add salt to pretzels as soon as they come out of the poaching liquid. If you wait, just sprinkle water on top so that the salt has something to stick to.
4. Sprinkle pretzels generously with salt.
Bake:
1. Place pretzels in a pre-heated 325 degree oven for 50-60 minutes or until pretzels are a dark tan color.
2. Remove from pan and let cool completely.
3. Store pretzels in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 7 days.
ENJOY!
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