After reading Chef Vogel's contemplation of the pretzel, I decided that I wanted to get into the act, too. I agree that most mass-produced hard pretzels are generally eaten in a fugue state while sipping a beer and watching a game above the bar. At its heart, though, the pretzel is a delightful specialty bread and deserves a bit more respect.
A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to be part of the opening team for a gastropub. We did everything from painting picture frames to mopping the floors to setting the opening menu. The restaurant was split into three parts: a chef's room, the main dining area, and the bar. The bar was quite the showpiece, and we always had a wonderful selection of fine American craft beers on tap. We would grudgingly hand someone a can of Budweiser if they insisted, but we only kept a few in the fridge.
Part of the fun, and challenge, of working at a restaurant that had "pub" in its name was trying to find as many ways as possible to integrate our great selection of beers into the food without its seeming forced or contrived. Enter, the soft pretzel--the quintessential bar snack that we made over into the most popular appetizer on the menu.
Secret #1: Feed The Yeast With Sugar
There are two secrets to making great soft pretzels that I will now share with you. When making a yeasted bread product, bakers always like to feed the yeast a bit of sugar to give it a head start. That sugar can be in the form of honey, granulated sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, even maple syrup. But the form that lends itself to the traditional soft pretzel is malt syrup-more or less the same stuff used in beer making. The malt syrup provides a subtle yet complex flavor that just says "soft pretzel."
Secret #2: Poach The Pretzels In Alkalized Water
Secret number two is to poach the pretzels in alkalized water, or water with a high pH. The hot water provides the gelatinization necessary for a shiny, crackly crust, and the low pH encourages deep browning in the oven so your pretzels come out pretzel-colored instead of roll-colored. Your standard bag of hard pretzels get a bath in a lye solution. In the home kitchen, this can be more than a little risky, so a good substitute is baking soda, one of the most alkalizing ingredients in the kitchen. It's cheap and readily available, and it works.
Now that you know the secrets, on with the recipe.
These pretzels are made with the straight dough method. That just means that you put all in ingredients in the mixer at one time and then let it mix. Very easy.
How to Twist Pretzels Video
Here's a quick video with Chef Jenni showing you how to twist a pretzel for this recipe. If you want to see the entire pretzel procedure on video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIhioueIzQI
Best Soft Pretzel Recipe Ever
Prep Time: 1 hr + rise, freeze&poach
Cook Time: 15 min
Total Time: 1.25 hrs +
Servings: 12
Ingredients:
2 oz. melted butter
11.5 oz. water
¾ oz fresh yeast
2¼ teaspoons salt
½ oz. malt syrup
22 oz. all purpose flour
Egg wash
Salt
How To Make At Home:
Dissolve the yeast in the water, and then put all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook.
Start the mixer and knead on medium-low speed for 8 minutes.
When the dough is soft and springy, remove it from the mixer, put it in a large greased bowl. Spray the top of the dough with a little vegetable oil to keep a skin from forming. Cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour depending on the temperature in your kitchen.
Once the dough has doubled in volume, gently press out the gasses. Divide the dough into 3 oz. pieces. This recipe makes about 12 pretzels, so if you don't want to weigh the dough, divide the dough in thirds and divide each third into fourths.
Roll each piece of dough into a 2 foot long rope. Twist into a pretzel shape, or whatever shape you like, really.
Place the pretzels on two greased cookie sheets or half sheet pans. Do not line them with parchment. I learned the hard way that this is a bad idea. Trust me.
Put the pretzels in the freezer until very firm. This step is not strictly necessary, but it makes it much easier to poach them and put them back on trays without their losing their shape.
Once the pretzels are frozen, bring 10 cups of water (1/2 gallon plus 1 pint) to a boil with ½ cup baking soda.
When the water is boiling, turn the heat down some to keep it at a gentle boil, and place three frozen pretzels in the water. After one minute, carefully remove the pretzels with a large slotted spoon or a spider and put them back on the baking sheet. Repeat until all the pretzels have taken a 60-second dip in the water.
Whisk one egg together with a teaspoon of water. Brush this egg wash evenly on all the pretzels. Don't glob it on; you just need a thin coat. At this point, you can sprinkle them with kosher salt, but it will tend to sink in, not giving you that cool salted pretzel look. They'll still taste great. If you're looking for a salt that won't melt, you can certainly purchase pretzel salt through Amazon. It is inexpensive and goes a long way.
At the restaurant, we wanted to "fancy them up a bit," so we used a light sprinkle of sel gris on the pretzels. This gives a wonderful result, but sel gris is pretty expensive. It's your call. You could also sprinkle them with poppy seeds or sesame seeds.
Bake at 400F until deeply golden brown (pretzel colored), about 15 minutes. For the most even baking, turn the baking sheets after about 8 minutes.
Tomorrow I'll show you how to make a Taleggio Porter Fondue to be used as a dipping sauce.
Read 16454 times
Last modified on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 19:02
Make sure you enter the (*) required information where indicated. HTML code is not allowed.
37 comments
Comment Link Posted by:
Butch
on
Friday, 05 October 2012 20:35
I found this recipe while searching the internet. The addition of the Malted Syrup surprised me. I made these yesterday and they are as close to true Philly Pretzels as I have had since I left Philly.
I grew up in Philly and could buy philly pretzels on just about any street corner.These are great and even better the next day.
Comment Link Posted by:
Marti
on
Wednesday, 30 May 2012 23:29
Hi! I've made your pretzels four times now. My husband absolutely loves them. He says they are the best. Thanks so much for sharing your recipe and technique with everyone.
One thing that I do a little differently though is I don't freeze them first. I just boil them and bake right away. To prevent waste and to have pretzels on-hand, I fully bake the ones I know we'll eat in a day and I par-bake the rest for about 10 minutes. I let them cool and freeze them individually in a zip lock bag. That way when we want just a couple of pretzels all we have to do take them out of the freezer, (NO defrosting) bake for another 10 minutes or until brown and they are as good as the first day.
Comment Link Posted by:
Spencer
on
Friday, 13 April 2012 08:10
Greetings to all from down under!
I am in no way a gourmet chef, but this is one excellent recipe. I made a batch yesterday and was really impressed if I have to say so myself. I baked them in two batches: the first six were my savouries and the second six were my sweets. With the first batch, I went with the sea salt suggestion that other posters mentioned. It is a good idea, but I definitely recommend erring on the side of "just a little." Sea salt is much stronger than the salt that is used at the average ballpark, so just a small sprinkle to avoid going overboard with saltiness. Just my two cents. As for the sweet pretzels, I melted some choc chips with a little butter together in a double boiler and then spooned the melted choc over the completed pretzels. My apologies to the purists out there, but they were really good. Thanks, Jenni for a terrific recipe. If I can make it, anyone truly can. :)
Comment Link Posted by:
Jilly Bean
on
Sunday, 29 January 2012 17:18
Also yet another neat tip, found through experimenting. Did not have malt syrup in the house, so took a little water out of the dough mixture and used dark corn syrup and about 2 T. of lager beer or Guiness (adjust to your taste). Gives it that flavor, and everyone kinda says, hmmm, what is that, without being able to guess. Turned out really well!
Comment Link Posted by:
Phyllis Cass
on
Friday, 21 October 2011 21:32
My "pretzel event" has come and gone and your pretzels were a great hit! I baked them partially the day before and finshed them off in the church oven that morning. Everyone came back for more and I had many requests for the recipe. I, of course, gave you the credit and advised them to go watch the video before trying to shape the pretzels! Thanks again for the great recipe and hand-holding. I plan to make some more and keep them in my freezer partially baked for quick treats when the mood strikes.
Comment Link Posted by:
Jenni
on
Thursday, 13 October 2011 13:51
Allison, I can't really say if the sponginess came from using a different recipe, but I doubt it was from the poaching. That's a pretty straightforward process. You may have overproofed the dough somewhat, but I'd bet that, as you suspect, it might have something to do with your not punching down the dough after the rise. To be technical, the idea isn't so much to punch the dough as it is to press out the gases and redistribute the yeast that are left so that they can continue to happily eat the sugars in the dough and emit carbon dioxide and alcohol. If you didn't do this step, it's not the end of the world--I'm sure your pretzels tasted just fine. But it is an extra step that helps to refine the texture and give you a more consistent product. If you had lots of larger air bubbles in your dough, once poached and baked, the resulting pretzels absolutely could feel kind of springy in your mouth. Try them again and make sure to press out the gases (punch) before shaping, and I'm sure you'll have 100% successful pretzels:)
Comment Link Posted by:
ben
on
Monday, 10 October 2011 20:16
if you do use lye, always special order "food grade", use gloves and goggles and don't spill (i wrecked a perfectly good picnic table this way!). Also, if you go this route absolutely use parchment paper...sodium hydroxide and metal (especially aluminum) react.
but, the pretzels are much better, way better, tremendously better, than you get with baking soda... thanks for the recipe!
Hi Ben, appreciate the tips but I would leave the lye to the professionals. Much too dangerous for my tastes. - RG
Comment Link Posted by:
Allison
on
Monday, 10 October 2011 14:06
Hi, I used part of your recipe yesterday to make pretzels. The dough I made from a recipe off of allrecipes.com and then I froze them and did your baking soda poaching and the rest of your recipe. My question is they came out a little spongy. Do you think it's because of the different dough recipe or something I did with the poaching? I don't have much experience in baking with yeast so maybe I overkneaded or underkneaded or did something with the rising. I do know that I didn't punch down the dough after it rose because I forgot that step. Any advice for a novice baker?
Comment Link Posted by:
Moira Blitzstein
on
Sunday, 02 October 2011 15:31
I am getting very good at making these, because my family loves these pretzels! My husband is from Philly, and is thrilled that I can make hot pretzels better than the ones he remembers back home. I am heading back out to whole foods right now to get more barley malt, so he can nosh on hot pretzels while watching the Phillies tonight. Thanks for the recipe.
Tough loss last night. I thought we had this one but at least the pretzels were perfect. Your husband is a lucky man! - RG
Comment Link Posted by:
Phyllis Cass
on
Tuesday, 27 September 2011 17:14
Thanks again for all the help. I will report back on how the pretzels are received. The event is October 8th--guess I had better get to mixing! Phyllis
Who Is The Reluctant Gourmet? I'm a work-at-home dad who enjoys cooking, learning everything I can about the culinary world and sharing it with you. To learn more about me, click here.
