Best Soft Pretzel Recipe Ever
How to Make Soft Pretzels at Home
After reading Chef Vogel’s contemplation of the pretzel, I decided that I wanted to get into the act, too. I agree that most mass-produced hard pretzels are generally eaten in a fugue state while sipping a beer and watching a game above the bar. At its heart, though, the pretzel is a delightful specialty bread and deserves a bit more respect.
A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to be part of the opening team for a gastropub. We did everything from painting picture frames to mopping the floors to setting the opening menu. The restaurant was split into three parts: a chef’s room, the main dining area, and the bar. The bar was quite the showpiece, and we always had a wonderful selection of fine American craft beers on tap. We would grudgingly hand someone a can of Budweiser if they insisted, but we only kept a few in the fridge.
Part of the fun, and challenge, of working at a restaurant that had “pub” in its name was trying to find as many ways as possible to integrate our great selection of beers into the food without its seeming forced or contrived. Enter, the soft pretzel—the quintessential bar snack that we made over into the most popular appetizer on the menu.
Secret #1 Feed The Yeast With Sugar
There are two secrets to making great soft pretzels that I will now share with you. When making a yeasted bread product, bakers always like to feed the yeast a bit of sugar to give it a head start. That sugar can be in the form of honey, granulated sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, even maple syrup. But the form that lends itself to the traditional soft pretzel is malt syrup-more or less the same stuff used in beer making. The malt syrup provides a subtle yet complex flavor that just says “soft pretzel.”
Secret #2 Poach The Pretzels In Alkalized Water
Secret number two is to poach the pretzels in alkalized water, or water with a high pH. The hot water provides the gelatinization necessary for a shiny, crackly crust, and the low pH encourages deep browning in the oven so your pretzels come out pretzel-colored instead of roll-colored. Your standard bag of hard pretzels get a bath in a lye solution. In the home kitchen, this can be more than a little risky, so a good substitute is baking soda, one of the most alkalizing ingredients in the kitchen. It’s cheap and readily available, and it works.
Now that you know the secrets, on with the recipe.
Soft Pretzels
These pretzels are made with the straight dough method. That just means that you put all in ingredients in the mixer at one time and then let it mix. Very easy.
2 oz. melted butter
11.5 oz. water
¾ oz fresh yeast
2 ¼ teaspoons salt
½ oz. malt syrup
22 oz. all purpose flour
Egg wash
Salt
How to Make Soft Pretzels at Home
Dissolve the yeast in the water, and then put all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook.
Start the mixer and knead on medium-low speed for 8 minutes.
When the dough is soft and springy, remove it from the mixer, put it in a large greased bowl. Spray the top of the dough with a little vegetable oil to keep a skin from forming. Cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour depending on the temperature in your kitchen.
Once the dough has doubled in volume, gently press out the gasses. Divide the dough into 3 oz. pieces. This recipe makes about 12 pretzels, so if you don’t want to weigh the dough, divide the dough in thirds and divide each third into fourths.
Roll each piece of dough into a 2 foot long rope. Twist into a pretzel shape, or whatever shape you like, really.
How to Twist Pretzels Video
Here’s a quick video with Chef Jenni showing you how to twist a pretzel for this recipe. If you want to see the entire pretzel procedure on video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIhioueIzQI
Place the pretzels on two greased cookie sheets or half sheet pans. Do not line them with parchment. I learned the hard way that this is a bad idea. Trust me.
Put the pretzels in the freezer until very firm. This step is not strictly necessary, but it makes it much easier to poach them and put them back on trays without their losing their shape.
Once the pretzels are frozen, bring 10 cups of water (1/2 gallon plus 1 pint) to a boil with ½ cup baking soda.
When the water is boiling, turn the heat down some to keep it at a gentle boil, and place three frozen pretzels in the water. After one minute, carefully remove the pretzels with a large slotted spoon or a spider and put them back on the baking sheet. Repeat until all the pretzels have taken a 60-second dip in the water.
Whisk one egg together with a teaspoon of water. Brush this egg wash evenly on all the pretzels. Don’t glob it on; you just need a thin coat. At this point, you can sprinkle them with kosher salt, but it will tend to sink in, not giving you that cool salted pretzel look. They’ll still taste great. If you’re looking for a salt that won’t melt, you can certainly purchase pretzel salt through Amazon. It is inexpensive and goes a long way.
At the restaurant, we wanted to “fancy them up a bit,” so we used a light sprinkle of sel gris on the pretzels. This gives a wonderful result, but sel gris is pretty expensive. It’s your call. You could also sprinkle them with poppy seeds or sesame seeds.
Bake at 400F until deeply golden brown (pretzel colored), about 15 minutes. For the most even baking, turn the baking sheets after about 8 minutes.
Tomorrow I’ll show you how to make a Taleggio Porter Fondue to be used as a dipping sauce.
Chef Jenni Field
pastrychefonline.com
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on February 10th, 2010 at 10:56 am
What perfect timing. We just did pretzels with the girls from an Auntie Anne’s kit. I was really disappointed, because they were sweet even before adding the typical (for Auntie Anne’s) cinnamon/sugar topping. I didn’t want sweet, I wanted a pretzel.
So of course I’m going to have to make them from scratch if I want them to be right. What I’m aiming for is the classic Philly street vendor style. And if you’ve never been to Philly, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. If you have, then right now you’re thinking, “Mmm, yeah, pretzel … need to get me one.”
So have you ever been to Philly and know what I’m talking about? If so, how close is this recipe to that style?
Hi Drew, I know Philly pretzels because I live in Philadelphia and have purchased many a pretzel from street vendors and at Philly games. I can’t compare them because this post and recipe is from Chef Jenni Field, one of The Reluctant Gourmet’s contributing writers. I hope to prepare her recipe this weekend and can compare but I think these pretzels look more like the ones I grew up on in Northern New Jersey. The Philadelphia pretzel is very narrow and usually comes in threes. - RG
on February 11th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Yeah, I noticed that it was Jenni’s recipe. Was hoping she had been to Philly and could answer this.
If I had ever noticed you mentioning you were in Philly, it slipped my mind. When you say the pretzels are “narrow”, do you mean top-to-bottom? Because the ones I’m talking about are the picture in the bottom of this post: http://thefoodinsulter.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/ode-to-the-philly-soft-pretzel/
Yeah but notice that there are four pretzels in that picture, not one. They are sold in fours like that but you break them apart into individual pretzels. You can see how narrow they are then. - RG
on February 11th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Unfortunately, Drew and RG, I’ve never had a Philly-style pretzel. I can tell you that these are not at all sweet with a nice chew. You also have to give them a good bite in order to eat one. They are delightful.
You can make them up until the point where you freeze them, then cover them and keep them in the freezer for a couple of weeks. When you’re feeling pretzel-ish, just chunk a few into boiling baking soda water for a minute, egg wash and bake. You’ll have hot, fresh pretzels in about 25 minutes.
The pretzel “rope” itself is probably about 1/3-1/2″ thick, if that helps any.
on February 12th, 2010 at 11:12 am
I guess I’ll wait for RG to do them this weekend and see what he has to say. The girls will be out of town, so I won’t be making them until next week anyway.
on February 25th, 2010 at 11:25 am
FYI the Philly soft pretzel …
http://www.phillysoftpretzelfactory.com/products.html
they are tall & skinny and tripled … pretzel dogs are also popular !
thanks for sharing your recipe
on March 7th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Okay, finally made these. I need some practice, but flavor-wise they’re just about perfect. I’ll be posting the results probably on the 16th — I’ve already got a few things ready to go — but one lesson learned I can share right now: Morton coarse sea salt is perfect for pretzels.
Thanks Drew for sharing your results and your Morton coarse sea salt lesson. Look forward to seeing your results. - RG
on March 16th, 2010 at 8:50 am
So what happens if you bake them on parchment? What specifically goes wrong?
on March 18th, 2010 at 10:55 am
It’s very Disturbing, Keith. I’m telling you, something about the mixture of alkalized water and egg wash and parchment equal big, stuck mess. We baked on parchment the first time we made these, and we ended up having to peel the paper off the backs in wee little strips. Not pretty. Just spray your pan thoroughly w/pan spray and you shouldn’t have any problem at all.
Jenni
on May 7th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Can they be pre-baked (partially)? I want to sell at my Tavern but 20 min seems like a long time to wait for a pretzel
on May 10th, 2010 at 6:43 am
Yes, Paul–we always pre-baked and then heated them to order for just a minute or two. I will say, though, that The Mellow Mushroom bakes theirs fresh (although they use their pizza dough, which isn’t the same) and their menu says to allow 20 minutes. Your call, but baking ahead is just fine.
on June 29th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Can the dough be made ahead of time? I want to make the dough this evening and then use it tomorrow with a group of kids. The cooking class is only an hour long so I won’t have time to let it proof during the class and then proceed.
on July 13th, 2010 at 6:31 am
I see this answer is a little late for you, Heather. Sorry about that. You can certainly make the dough ahead of time, wrap it well and refrigerate it overnight. Take it out maybe three hours before class to give it a chance to come up to room temp and rise a bit. Then, just roll away.
If you’re not going to blanch them from frozen, expect it to be a bit more difficult. The pretzels do not hold their shape when soft, and the alkalized water makes them very sticky, too. Even when an adult makes them, there is much less gnashing of teeth if you freeze them “raw,” and then blanch them frozen. By the time they’re done blanching and you have egg-washed and salted them, they’ll be good to go for the oven.