Making Soft Pretzels

So here’s a little history behind the shape of the pretzels;

The German story tells that a baker was once put in prison for supplying bad bread to the people. After being in captive for ages, the authorities had enough of the bakers laments, and so told him that if he could bake something good and new in which the sun could shine through three times, then they would set him free. The baker then came up with the pretzel and was set free because, sure enough, the sun light was able to shine through it three times.

- Source

Not sure whether I believe the history or not. All I know is that I’ve been craving for pretzels since I saw ~LiDac’s photo and just had to make some.

Dough:

[2g sugar + 8g dry yeast + 148ml warm water + 315g flour + 50g sugar + 4g salt + 8ml vegetable oil]

Yes, the sugar is mentioned twice.

So you take the warm water and dissolve the 2g sugar in it.

Then dissolve the yeast

Leave for 5-10 mins. It will be bubbly and frothy by then (which means the yeast has digested the sugar and made some CO2! wippeee!)

Measure out the flour, put into a mixing bowl.

Make a well in the center. Add in the 50g sugar and the salt

Mix into the flour, make a well again. Pour in the yeast water mixture

Add in the oil

Mix until the flour has incorporated into the liquid. Use your hands to work in the last bit of loose flour and dough bits into one ball. Leave to stand in damp, warm place for about 1 hour.

When the dough has risen, punch the air out and roll onto a floured surface

Shape into a thick rope as long as your forearm

Score the dough in half. Then half of the halves, then halve of the quarters

Trace the line and cut the dough to pieces

And now we’re going to make the pretzel shape! Don’t be intimidated, just follow the step by step and all will be well.

Take one small piece of dough and shape it to a long, thin rope (not too thin).

Make a U shape

Then twist the top part, like so

Then bring down the ends to the bottom of the “U”. Be sure to secure the ends that is attached to the U, because if they’re loose, they will unravel when you put them in the “soda bath”.