bavarian pretzels
1 pack RapidRise yeast
2¾ cups bread flour
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup warm water
2 tbsp soft butter
5 tsp baking soda
kosher salt
- In a large mixing bowl, combine yeast, 1½ cups flour, ½ tsp salt, and sugar
- Add warm water and mix well
- Add butter and stir until blended
- Slowly mix in the remaining 1¼ cups of flour, and knead dough until all of the flour is mixed in and dough loses its stickiness.
- Set aside dough, and let it rise until dough reaches approximately double its original size.
- Divide dough into twelve equal pieces.
- Grease and flour a baking sheet. Even better, use parchment paper instead and skip the grease and flour.
- Take each piece and swing it around like a mini-jump rope, letting the dough whack the prep surface on the way down. I learned this trick from watching the people at the pretzel place at the outlet mall. Their pretzels are greasy and nasty, but they know how to throw the dough around.
- Loop and twist the lengths into pretzel shapes and place them on the baking sheet.
- Preheat oven to 475°, and ready a boiling solution of 4 cups of water, and the 5 tsp of baking soda in a shallow non-aluminum pot (aluminum may react with baking soda).
- With a plastic spatula, lift each pretzel from the sheet and lower it into the boiling baking soda solution for 15-20 seconds. You can do more than one pretzel at a time, it just depends on how fast you can work.
- Sprinkle the pretzels with kosher salt and bake approximately 7-10 minutes until browned.
If you are lucky enough to have a guy around your house who makes beer, these go great with home-brewed Belgian beers such as a saison or a witbier. Cheers!