Get Your Hot Pretzels!
Or, better yet, make your hot pretzels.
My youngest calls them “prentzels” and we let her because it’s cute. Her little linguistic gyrations will come to an end soon enough so there’s no reason not to enjoy it.
When I was a kid in Sterling Heights, MI, a suburb of Detroit, my dad and I would venture on occasion to the Oakland Mall. Two stores were the most important to me: Sander’s Ice Cream Parlor and Hot Sam’s Pretzels. They were great: big and soft and hot and salty and chewy and, with a bit of yellow mustard, probably the best thing ever.
As an adult I visited that mall, but somewhere between us moving away and my return, Sam’s went away too. Soft warm salty yeasty chewy pretzels seemed a fondness of days gone by. I’ll eat a crunchy pretzel, but my fondness was for that Proustian connection to the soft pretzel.
My kids like to watch the Tasty videos of food. Probably more for the sped up camera which makes mixing really cool to watch. They ooh and ahh at some things, and my wife sends them to me. One was the soft pretzel. The younger one really likes to help with everything and has to have her eyeballs right there. Driving a screw, “I wanna watch.” Throwing darts, “Can I do it?” So, mixing dough was going to be a two person job. She did fine.
We let our dough rest in the refrigerator overnight. If you do that, allow it an hour to warm up a bit before you work with the dough. It’s much easier to get the long ropes needed for big pretzels. Also, pretzels, properly done, require a special kind of lye-caustic soda-in the water when you boil them. It does make a difference and purists will scoff at you for not using it. If you use lye, do take care as well. It is caustic. Not time for silliness. You can get some at the link below, but if you prefer to use baking soda instead, it does work. A word of caution, however, about the soda: it is a leavener which means it makes air when it hits the hot water, the air takes the form of foam and it might overflow the top of your pot a moment.
Soft Pretzel Dough
Of course, soft pretzels are fabulous, but so too are pretzel buns.
I don't boil the buns. I prefer a softer roll for sandwiches, but of course, that is a personal preference.
Ingredients
Pretzel Dough
- 720 g Bread flour
- 411 g Room temperature water
- 17 g Salt
- 11 g Sugar
- 21 g Oil
- 6 g Instant yeast
Topping
- 2/3 C Baking soda
- 1 each Egg, beaten
- Coarse pretzel salt Kosher will work
Instructions
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1. Heat oven to 450°F.
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2. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, and sugar, yeast and 2 tablespoons of oil. Mix thoroughly until a dough forms. Transfer the dough to the counter and kneed it for about 3 minutes to really work the dough and develop the texture. You will also start to feel the dough get a bit warm and smooth.
Pretzel dough is a stiff dough and my small counter top mixer gets a bit taxed here. A good kneed on the counter ensures a good dough.
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3. Lightly oil the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl (it's okay if it isn't washed out). Place the dough into the bowl, roll it around to coat it in oil.
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4. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, and leave in a warm place for 1 hour.
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5. Cut dough into 8 pieces (about 143 grams or 5 ounces) and roll them out into thin ropes, about 14 inches long. If your dough is a tad cool, it is acceptable to let the rope rest, covered with plastic wrap, and let it rest a few minutes. Turn and fold the two ends to form a pretzel shape.
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6. Add baking soda to a large pot of salted water, and bring to a rolling boil. Boil each pretzel for 30 seconds per side.
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7. Remove pretzels from the water and place on a baking sheet. Brush with egg wash, and sprinkle with coarse salt. You can really individualize the pretzels: sesame seeds, garlic powder, cinnamon sugar. Invent.
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8. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown.
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9. Enjoy!
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
I love a good pretzel roll, or pretzel, for a sandwich or a snack.
Experiment with different coarse salts on top and different dipping sauces for the pretzels.
Try some sticks as well as the traditionally shaped pretzels.
For another option, make rolls. These are my version.
I scaled them at 4 oz, and, save the one round one, rolled them into a rectangle and folded them long edges to the middle then the ends to the center to create a rectangular roll.
Proof seam side down. When almost ready to bake, press them with a flat pan, egg wash, salt and bake. I baked them about 18 minutes.
