Week 29: Soft Pretzels – A Year Of Baking

Soft Pretzels

This might be the only thing we will bake this year that isn’t a dessert. We made the decision early on that we wouldn’t include yeast breads on our list because there are so many breads that we have never tried, how would we choose? Plus, breads are all similar and we wanted to try different things. Soft pretzels are a bread but we made an exception for them.

Full disclosure, I have made soft pretzels before…many, many years ago. Before I had kids. Aubrey has not, so, the first time stipulation is technically based on this being her first time making them.

We did not have a recipe in our books for these (other than my Betty Crocker cookbook) so we found one online at HealthySeasonlRecipes.com: whole-wheat pretzels. In fact, I had this recipe printed out for over a year and just hadn’t taken the time to make them.

We didn’t make any substitutions with this recipe because the recipe was a whole-wheat version already! Not sure if that is a first, but it seems like it is.

Ingredients

Pre-Ferment

1 ¾ cups (7 ¼ ounces) white whole-wheat flour
1 ¼ cup room temperature water
generous pinch instant yeast

Dough

1 ½ cups bread flour
1 tablespoon softened butter
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon barley malt syrup

Water Bath

12 cups water
3 tablespoons baking soda

Topping

1 large egg, beaten
coarse salt
seeds

Instructions

Make Preferment: Whisk white whole-wheat flour, water and pinch of yeast in a large bowl. Cover and let sit on the counter overnight, or refrigerate 20 hours.
Make Dough: Stir bread flour, softened butter, salt, 1 teaspoon yeast, and barley syrup into the preferment until it is too difficult to work with a spoon, and then work with hands in the bowl until the dough comes together in a sticky mass. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until the ball of dough is smooth and elastic. (Do not mix in extra flour. The dough will seem a little tacky at first, but will improve in texture as you work it.) Transfer to a clean bowl, cover with plastic and set aside in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.
Prepare Water Bath: Bring water and baking soda to a boil in a large flame-proof roasting pan, or large wide pot. Coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Meanwhile, turn-out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and flatten and cut into 8 equal pieces, about 3 ½ ounces each. Roll each dough into long even ropes, about 22-inches long. Shape into pretzel by forming a loop at the bottom and then twisting the top over one time. Wrap the tails down to the opposite bottom side and press them down to adhere.
Transfer four pretzels to the boiling baking soda bath and allow to blanch until they are puffed up, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer the pretzels to a clean dish towel to drain off the excess moisture before transferring them to the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the second batch, making sure that the water comes to a boil again before adding them to the bath.
Top Pretzels: Brush all of the pretzels with the egg using a pastry brush. Sprinkle the coarse salt and seeds over the pretzels. Bake until dark golden and the exterior is set up, 12 to 14 minutes.

Our Experience

We started this week’s bake on Friday night to make the pre-ferment. The blog link above goes into why she decided to create this step in the process. We didn’t get any ingredient shots this time around.

*This is the pre-ferment before we went to bed on Friday night.*

The pre-ferment looked a lot like a sourdough starter. Which makes me wonder how I could use a sourdough starter to make some of these.

*This is the pre-ferment on Saturday before we mixed it with the dry ingredients.*

These were pretty easy to make. Everything went into one bowl and then it got mixed up. Once it was mixed, it went into the bowl to proof. We turned on our warming drawer before it was needed and then turned it off once it was warm so it wouldn’t be too hot when we were ready to put the dough in.

*The dry ingredients along with the butter. It was weird not to melt it.*

The dough looked pretty rough once mixed and was very sticky.

*The dough before being put into the bowl to proof. We kneaded it a few more times before putting it in the bowl.*

The directions didn’t say anything about spraying the bowl or plastic wrap with Pam or putting oil in the bowl to prevent sticking. So, against my better judgement, we didn’t put anything on the bowl or the wrap.

*You can see how sticky it is here. The ball isn’t nice and smooth because it stuck to our hands when we put it in the bowl.*

Once the dough had doubled in size, we went to remove the plastic wrap and had to work to get it off…note to self, next time, spray the plastic wrap with Pam even if it isn’t in the directions.

*Just what I was expecting, this might get interesting.*

*Not too bad getting most of the dough off of the plastic wrap.*

I have no photos of kneading the dough until it is “smooth and elastic”. It took f-o-r-e-v-e-r!! I have made a few breads before and this dough took longer than any I can remember. It was at least half an hour! The next time we make these we will absolutely try to use the KitchenAid with the dough hook.

Once the dough was ready, we weighed it, divided by eight, and then portioned the dough out accordingly. It was finally time to roll it out and make the pretzels. We had to look up some pictures because we had a brain-f… moment. 🙂

*Time to roll out the dough and form the pretzel shape.*

After looking up a photo, we smacked our foreheads and continued on twisting the shapes without looking back.

*The shaped pretzel, before putting in the water bath.*

Once the pretzels were formed, we put them carefully in the boiling water until they puffed up a little and floated to the top. If you don’t secure the tails, they might come loose in the water. A couple of ours unfolded a little.

*This photo is a little blurry, but this is what they look like after they come out of the boiling water. The tails are a little loose.*

If you want to have big pretzels with large holes between the twists, you will have to roll them out longer than 22″ as directed. We didn’t care too much about that so we didn’t try to make them larger. We didn’t have any pearl salt but we do have some margarita salt and it really was the perfect size and consistency. It wasn’t crunchy and it was big enough that we could see how much we had put on. We did not put any seeds on them because, well, who does that? 😉

*Pretzel on the prepared pan, egg washed and salted.*

It will take a few more attempts to get them consistent in size but these really don’t look too bad for a first try.

*Out of the oven. They smell delicious. The two on the right are unsalted in case some of our testers prefer no salt.*

*They look so good and they smell even better. Like homemade bread!*

*The texture of a soft pretzel is amazing!! Look at the squishy, bready goodness.*

What we liked.

We had another 5 out of 5 on this one!! With only 8 pretzels, we didn’t have any to share with others. Garrett was quick to proclaim this was, by far, the best thing we have made ALL YEAR!

They were crispy on the outside (when they were fresh of course) and had a great chewy center. They tasted like pretzels and I think that has something to do with the barley malt syrup and the baking soda bath. I had one with salt and one without (because nobody wanted them without salt…who knew?). I definitely prefer the salted ones. I actually sprinkled some salt on my plain one after eating half of it.

There was nothing to dislike about these. They went together with relative ease and they were completely worth it!

What we would change.

I would only change how I kneaded them as discussed above. If my KitchenAid works, these will become regulars on our list of things to bake with frequency!

What we learned.

We learned how to make a pre-ferment and how to use the water bath with yeast breads. We may have to do a little more research on the pre-ferment method since we like using whole grains.

We also learned that Garrett doesn’t like desserts nearly as much as he likes soft pretzels!

Until next week, Happy Baking!