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April 20, 2008
Bretzel vs Pretzel - The deluxe recipe
This is the hard way of baking original German (Swabian) Bretzels. For the easy way, check out the Pretzel post at TheFreshLoaf. And by the way, I do think that going the extra mile of creating the Pâte fermentée and using real lye (Food grade Sodium Hydroxide - NaOH, which I bought from AAA Chemicals) is totally worth the effort.I got the recipe from a German site called Chili und Chiabatta. This is my English version, slightly simplified:
A day ahead, create the Pâte fermentée (fermented dough):
- 144g White Flour
- 94g Water
- 2.8g Salt
- 1 pinch of Dry Yeast
Now create the real dough:
- 578g White Flour
- 340g Water
- 12g Salt
- 14g Fresh Yeast (I used 2.5 tsp Dry Yeasy)
- 36g soft Butter
- 7g Baking Malt (I used 1 tbsp Cane Sugar)
- 240g Pâte fermentée (all the above)
Make about 15 portions (85g each) and roll them out to about 60cm long 'worms' with a thick middle section. Lay into the typical Bretzel shape.
Cover with cloth and let rise for 30-45min. Now cool in the fridge for 30min - the Bretzels are a lot easier to handle afterward.
Now the fun part - The lye:
- 1250g cold Water
- 50g NaOH
(Now is a good time to preheat your oven to 230C) Slowly stir the NaOH into the cold water until fully dissolved. Using a large skimmer dunk each Bretzel into the solution for 5s. Top with coarse salt and using a sharp knife, make an incision at the belly of the Bretzel.
Update: Because those Bretzels taste the best right after baking, I did try to freeze a couple of them at this point in the process and the result was encouraging - Give it a try, if you don't think you will eat all of them right away :)
On a well greased baking pan (No Al!) bake the Bretzels for 14-16min at 230C.
Bretzels taste best when still warm - try them with a Bavarian Cheese spread called, aka Obatzda!
Posted by marco at 7:57 PM