SOFT PRETZELS
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in her last book, Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 274). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
THE SIMPLE RECIPES that I’ve told you I personally prefer, are not always the fastest – but how can you argue with the virtues of a 4-ingredient combination that is far superior to what you find in the frozen food selections of your supermarket – or to a product sold exclusively in shopping malls, where it is the only item on their menu.
I speak of the SOFT PRETZEL! And I will not get into one of those tacky and senseless debates on the virtues or penalties of a simple food like the ‘soft pretzel’, when it’s great-grandfather, French bread, is hardly on the APB of food critics anywhere!
Argue, if you wish, about this as a ‘junk food’, but as for myself, I have better options with which to spend my energies. Let me share with you this simple combination of ingredients I developed for this super-snack idea.
INGREDIENTS:
1 envelope dry yeast mix
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
3 ¼ to 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
INSTRUCTIONS:
Place yeast, water and sugar in a 1 ½-quart mixing bowl. Give it a stir just to combine it all and set your timer to let it stand in a warm place for 10 minutes. This will allow it to triple in bulk! If it doesn’t – the yeast is bad, or the water was too hot. Throw it out and start all over again.
With electric beaters on low speed, work in about half of the flour to a smooth dough. Remove beaters [and, by hand,] work in enough of the remaining flour so that you have a smooth, elastic-type dough that is no longer sticky to the touch.
Keep a little extra flour handy in which to dip your knuckles (as in my White Bread recipe directions – see Index) and knead dough for 5 minutes. Do this right in the bowl.
Take another bowl the same size and spray it with Pam or wipe it lightly with oil. Place dough in this bowl, turning it over once so that the top is now greased. Spray the inside of a plastic bag with Pam or wipe lightly with oil. Place the bag over the bowl, allowing half of the bag to remain above the top of the bowl, giving the dough room to rise to 3 times its original size in bulk.
This takes about 45 minutes – set your timer! It might take a bit longer, depending on the humidity and warmth in the room. If the dough touches the bag at all in rising, it shouldn’t stick to it because you have greased it properly.
When dough is about 2 inches above the rim of the bowl, flour your fingers and punch the dough down, kneading it a minute or two. Break apart into 15 pieces and roll them into 12-inch long “ropes”.
Shape into the popular soft pretzel form by twisting the 2 ends together twice and bringing them down to the center of the “rope”. Pinch it together, in kind of a heart shape. Arrange on greased cookie sheet and place in freezer, uncovered, for 1 hour. You don’t want them to rise any more than they have.
Meanwhile, put 4 cups of water in an accommodating skillet with 4 tablespoons baking soda. Bring this to a brisk boil and keep it boiling gently as you lift the pretzels, one at a time, with a pancake turner, slipping it into the water for half a minute.
Remove with pancake turner and drain on paper towel. Place 2 inches apart on the greased cookie sheet. Dust in coarse ground salt, or sea salt.
Bake in a preheated, 450°F oven for 14 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet at once. Enjoy them while they’re hot! Makes 15 pretzels.
[NOTE: If you’re ever in the Frankenmuth area, I highly recommend Oma’s (in the Bavarian Inn) 12-inch authentically German pretzel, called The Big Twist!]
See also…
