When I think about soft pretzels, I see myself around age 6-7 at the Olympic Stadium. My dad took me there to see a Montreal Expos baseball game, and let’s be honest, all I cared about was getting my hot pretzel.
Traditional German pretzels (laugenbrezel) are dipped in a caustic soda (lye) solution before baking. The American style uses baking soda and butter instead.
(Experiment 232) American soft pretzel
Ingredients
- 2.5 cup of flour have an extra 1/2 cup handy as you will likely need to add some more
- 4.5 g salt
- 3.5 g instant dry yeast
- 1 cup warm water around 110F
- 30 g melted butter If you love butter you can put up to 45gr
- Some oil
- 19 g sugar or cane sugar
- 4.2 g sea salt
- water
- coarse salt
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup baking soda
Instructions
- Put the sugar, water, and yeast into a standing mixer bowl and whisk. Wait 5-10min
- Turn the stand mixer on low and put butter and salt.
- Start adding little by little the flour. Once all the flour is in, increase the speed a little bit and let it knead for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and touch the dough. It should NOT be dry but it should not be sticky ( or barely sticky ). If your dough is sticky ( mine was), start adding a tablespoon of flour, turn the machine on for a minute and touch it again. Repeat this step until the dough reaches the right consistency.
- Oil the inside of a large bowl and dump the dough in it, cover with plastic film or lid. Let it rest for about an hour.
- Before
- After
- Take a large pot and put 4 liters of cold water in it + baking soda. Bring to a boil
- While it’s heating it’s now time to shape the dough into a pretzel. On a clean countertop drop the dough and cut it into 6 pieces. Roll them out with your hands until it reaches 24 inches or so ( no need to be precise here ). Make a U shape with the “roll”, twist the extremity, and fold them over. You should now have a pretzel shape. It’s pretty easy, I let my kids do this step they had fun. Repeat for the rest of the dough and place them on a parchment paper
- When done, check on the water it should be boiling at this point. Reduce to simmer and dip each pretzel, one at a time, for 20-25 seconds. Using a strainer, remove them from the water making sure you take most of the water out of it ( IE gently banging the strainer on the side of the pot). Place the parboiled pretzel on a parchment covered pan. Repeat for the other pretzel.
- Pre-heat oven at 450F.
- It’s time to garnish those pretzels. In a bowl, scramble the egg and add a little bit of water. Brush your pretzel with the egg wash and then add the coarse/pretzel salt.
- Put in oven ( bottom row) for 15 mins
- I recommend you wait a few mins before eating them
- Made by one of my kids, not bad !
Notes
Keep them up to 3 days in the fridge. To reheat them, either microwave them until warm or better, wrap them in foil, and heat them 5 mins at 350F.