Last year one of my birthday goals was to make pretzels. I didn’t make it happen, so I carried the goal over. As I looked this year’s goals, the 33 things I want to accomplish by my 33rd birthday, I couldn’t bear the thought of having another year go by without completing this simple task, so I busted out the mixer and the yeast and went at it. A while ago, I bought a cookbook that is explicitly dedicated to the pretzel. But the base recipe in that book required an overnight proofing, so I decided to look elsewhere. Hello Internet. So, I followed a recipe I found on CHOW.
It was a pretty simple recipe.
Trying to figure out how to twist the pretzels was the biggest challenge. You can see that some are a better shape than others. This experience makes me want to go to the mall and observe the pretzel twisters there.
Next time, I think that I will try to make the pretzels a bit bigger, but I will also try to roll the dough out into thinner strips. I had a hard time with the rolling the strips. I kept trying to make them thinner hoping it would help me get a better pretzel shape, but then my strip would break before I could even twist the dough, much less get it into the pot for boiling. I thought about making ring shaped pretzels, but I thought that they might turn out too much like bagels. I hadn’t known that the alkaline water would make such a difference in how these turned out.
I baked my pretzels in two batches. The first I baked a bit longer than the second (more than the 10 minutes the recipe called for). I think that these turned out better than the other ones.
I’m pretty satisfied with this experience, but I want to go at it again. Besides, making a second batch of pretzels would go perfectly with goal 22, which is to make homemade mustard.
I have to say – once they’re cooked, it doesn’t matter how carefully-shaped they are, they all look delicious!