I suited up with those thick and cumbersome red rubber gloves and got to it. SLASH AND GLAZE THE DOUGH Slashing the pretzel breads. The lye dissolved nicely and it didn’t splash around. I wouldn’t allow making pretzels to become a drama. Rick has a gas mask with vapour cartridges downstairs, and I considered wearing it, but then I thought better. I felt so concerned about the lye, that I took every precaution.I wondered why refrigerating them uncovered for one hour was important and I worried that leaving them in the fridge for three hours (that’s what I did) would be the end of them.The final 12 pieces of pretzel bread dough. It kept forming a dry crust after just a few minutes. And I was impressed with how quickly the dough dried out even in the earliest stages of handling. I wanted them to look like footballs and not pretzel nuggets. Still, shaping the pretzels took some time.I cut the pieces willy-nilly without weighing them, and in retrospect, I should have been more precise because the baking times for the smaller pretzels were different.Ĭutting the pretzel bread dough willy nilly.Usually, the dough will puff some and form air pockets, but not for this dough. I let it rest for the prescribed hour, and to my surprise, it didn’t rise hardly at all.After that, it comes together as described. Initially, the dough didn’t form a ball, so I was forced to add 1 tsp of water.MIX THE PRETZEL DOUGH The dry ingredients of the Pretzel Bread. The lye crystals that I used for the pretzel bread. It wasn’t until after the pretzels were baked and tasted that he told me a story about a highly concentrated sodium hydroxide solution that blew a tanker off its bolts. Rick being a chemist, found me a brand that was pure enough for my purposes. Even if I used the sodium hydroxide sold as drain cleaner (lye at its impure state), at a 4% solution, I doubt anything much would have happened to me however, I have to want to eat the pretzels after I bake them. Never having considered using it as an ingredient, it took me a while to find a brand that I felt comfortable enough using. My solution was just to throw money at the problem and be patient while the ubiquitous-in-the-US malt powder arrived at my door. I guess brands don’t think enough Canadians make bread. For malt powder , I scoured Canada and was unsuccessful in my search. I went to a great deal of trouble hunting down the malt powder and lye (sodium hydroxide). I just want to say a few words about the ingredients necessary for making Pretzel Bread.The Finer Cookie is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. – I just want to say a few words about the ingredients necessary for making Pretzel Bread. They were strikingly easy to make and I’m really proud of myself. It’s been so long since I had a pretzel like this, that I’d forgotten the real flavor of a soft pretzel. They tasted just like the pretzels I use to buy from the street trucks in NYC. Biting into my first homemade Pretzel Bread got me so excited. It’s funny, the more you experience, the more you notice in the world around you. I never considered it was possible to make Soft Pretzels at home, but now that I’ve made them, I see Pretzels in every book on my shelf.
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