I was quite sad on my first attempt because I wasn’t able to make the dough rise, so it’s pretty massive and dense after baking. Nonetheless, the taste was still close to what it was called. The second attempt was great! Well, perhaps that was just a matter of first time try where I could reflect about what went wrong so I would correct it the next attempt. These are one of the fun things to do not only with your kids but also with your special someone or anybody who would love to do it with you. Such a perfect thing to do for bonding.
INGREDIENTS:Yield: 24
- 2 cups milk
- 1 1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast (2 packets)
- 4 tablespoons melted butter
- 4 tablespoons brown sugar
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup bread flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup baking soda
- 3 cups hot water
- Coarse salt
DIRECTIONS:
- Warm your milk up to a temperature where you can still comfortably put your finger in it. (Not warm enough milk won’t help the yeast to activate). Transfer it in a mixing bowl then whisk in the yeast and leave it for about 5 minutes to activate.
- You will know that you have successfully activated the yeast if you see plenty of bubbles on the surface of the milk. Now, feed it by mixing in the melted butter and the brown sugar. (Don’t finish all the butter; leave at least a tablespoon that we will use to brush up on the pretzel for the finishing touch).
- Whisk in the dry ingredients (all purpose flour, bread flour mixture, and salt). When you noticed that the dough is quite formed then it’s the time to use your clean hands and knead it for 10 minutes.
- Leave the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a clean towel or a plastic wrap then let it rise for about an hour.
- You will see that the dough has doubled its size. That is because of the enzyme coming from the yeast converted the flour’s starch into maltose which the yeast eats and made it produce carbon dioxide that causes the dough to rise. Punch down the dough to release the air and knead again for another 10 minutes.
- Divide it into 24 equal parts then you’re ready to mold them to pretzel shape. Preheat your oven on high (440 degrees) while you are molding them.
- After molding the first 6 batches, prepare the baking soda solution; Dissolve the baking soda in hot water then soak each molded pretzels for 5 seconds then row them up on the pan that’s layered with a sheet of foil and greased with butter. Sprinkle each with some sea salt then bake them for approximately 10 minutes on medium heat to thoroughly cook the dough inside then 3 minutes on high heat to create that amazing crusty texture and nice color outside.
- While baking the first batch, repeat the same step for the next batches. Remember that we are only doing 6 pieces per batch so there will be 4 batches of pretzels for a total of 52 minutes of baking.
- Right after baking the pretzels, brush them up with some melted butter. This will create a glossy and fancy look on our finished product.
- Completely cool them down before storing them in a container otherwise it will moist and might create a reaction to the soda solution and yeast we used that will result in a funny taste of our bread.
This recipe has very few ingredients yet requires a lot of time and patience. But I assure you that all the effort is worth it and you will be rewarded with such an amazing feeling of accomplishing something, skills enhancing and knowledge collecting.