admin July 9, 2013 No Comments

Thrift soft-pretzels

Easy Thrifty Soft-Pretzels
 
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Make your own delicious, thrifty soft-pretzels at home with no special equipment.
Author:
Recipe type: Bread
Serves: 10-12
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups warm water
  • 1¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (1 pkg.)
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1¼ teaspoons salt
  • 4 cups flour (You can use 1 cup wheat/3 cups white)
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons baking soda
  • coarse salt
Instructions
  1. Place water, yeast, brown sugar, salt and 2 cups flour in stand mixer and mix with mixing attachment. Continue to add enough flour until the dough is fairly firm and pulling away from the sides of the bowl.
  2. Switch mixing attachment to a dough hook. Continue to mix the bread, adding flour a little bit at a time until the dough is soft and not sticky.
  3. Allow dough to rise at least 30 minutes but you can go up to 2 hours.
  4. Preheat oven to 450F
  5. In a pot large enough for a pretzel to be submerged in, add water and baking soda and bring to a light boil.
  6. After dough is finished rising, pinch off approximately a golf-ball size piece of dough. Using your hands, make a long, thin rope of dough. Twist the two ends and then tuck them over the dough and pinch the ends so the dough will stay in a pretzel twist shape.
  7. Dip your pretzel twist in the baking soda water for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Remove from water and place on a greased cookie sheet. You can line it with greased wax paper to make clean up easier.
  8. Sprinkle dipped pretzels with course salt.
  9. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Here is a very thrifty recipe for soft-pretzels. You do not need any special equipment to make these. However,  I have included some helpful tips to make them like the professional ones you buy.

Tips:

~ Dipping pretzels in near boiling/boiling water is absolutely necessary to get the right texture and chewiness.
~ The thinner you can make the pretzel rope, the more “professional” they will look.
~ You do not need to let the pretzels rise after dipping them in the baking soda water. They thicken up in the oven during baking.
~ Sprinkle the salt on before baking so it sticks to the pretzels.
~ If you want a darker crusty pretzel, use an egg wash on them prior to adding the salt.
~ If your pretzels seem to bounce back while making the rope, you dough needs to rise longer so the gluten can relax

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