Sourdough Pretzels

Love a good sourdough; love a good pretzel (disclaimer - I'm German, so feel like I should maybe use the German spelling Brezel - but will just carry on with the English spelling for now); why not make a sourdough pretzel? Well I did, and it was nice, but probably not any nicer than the usual regular-yeast pretzels I make. Stink. And I was a bit lazy on the last step which meant they didn't quite get the crispy bitter coating that they usually get.

Here's the recipe (assumes you have a Sourdough starter already... if not, there's the bugs [yeast and bacteria] present in any flour - basically take 50g whole wheat flour and 30g water and mix in a clean jar, cover with something that will allow gas out [like a bit of baking paper and your daugther's hair tie] so the glass won't explode, then the next day discard all of it except 20g and add another 50g/30g to the jar, stir, and keep repeating daily until it's real bubbly - then you have a starter... I'd suggest the book by Margot Bakery as a Bible for any up and coming sourdough home-baker)

Makes 8 smallish pretzels

Stage 1 starter

- 10g of the starter, 12 hours from the last time you added some flour (so it's quite bubbly)
- 70g whole wheat flour (not because I was intentially planning wholemeal pretzels, but rather because I didn't have any white flour in the house at the time)
- 50g water

Take all of the above, mix it, and stick it in a jar big enough that it could potentially triple in size (so lets say a 500g jar should be sufficient) and leave it for say 12-24 hours

The Actual Dough
- Stage 1 starter
- 4 cups white flour
- 1/2 cup milk
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil

Mix the dough without the yeast (I used a dough mixer on my wife's food processor). Let it sit for 30 mins, covered, to "develop the gluten" (whatever that means, but trust me, without gluten these bad boys would not be as good)

Mix in the yeast. Then leave to rest for 1 hour, covered. Then fold (use a spatula or similar, get it underneath one corner and fold it on top of the bulk of the dough, then do the same for all the other corners - you could well be in a round bowl, then just make up that it has corners and do it four times). Another 30 minute rest then another fold. Then another 30 minute rest.

Roll the whole blob into a bit of a cylender, then cut in half. Roll each half a bit smaller and cut those in half (now you have four small cylendars). Roll each of those and cut in half again, so you have 8 little blobs, and then roll each of those into about a 20cm saussage, with the middle being thicker than the outside (see below).

Now pile those 8 blobs into some kind of container and stick it in the fridge overnight, aim 24 hours, the longer in the fridge the sourer - although mine weren't particularly sour.

Shaping The Pretzels

When you're ready, get them out of the fridge, and shape them... into pretzels. If you have children, you might consider making the first letter of their names. If you're not a middle aged dad, you might think of something way more exciting.

The Lye (oh, the lie!)

To make real German Brezen, you need a chemical called lye. I don't really know what it is, but it's highly alkaline (the opposite of acidic), you need eye protection to use it, and I have no idea where to get it. The home-brewer (er home-baker, sorry) uses a much less alkaline product that is readily available in the home - Baking soda. It doesn't work nearly as good, doesn't give the pretzels a nice shiny finish, but makes them a little more like pretzels and less like bread, so I like it. One trick I've learnt (that I couldn't be bothere doing this time) is to put the baking soda in the oven at a low heat (say 50-70 degrees celsius) for two hours, which apparently makes it more alkaline (and defintely does make the end product taste better). I usually just spread it out on a sheat of aluminium foil on a baking tray.

- 3 tablespoons of baking soda (ideally after having been awesome-ised in the oven as described above, but omit if lazy)

- 1 litre of water

Add the water to a pot, add the baking soda and boil. Then one by one, drop each pretzel into the boiling baking-soda-soup. Leave it there for 30-60 seconds, then take it out, shake the drips off, try not to spill it all over the kitchen floor (wife gets really annoyed at wet kitchen floor) and stick it on a tray with some baking paper. This seals the outside, so when they rise in the oven later they will explode (wow that sounds epic!) out of their skin... You can control this by using a knfie and scoring them to make the slits appear where you like (for the typical pretzel shape usually a bit slit at the bottom). You can also add some chunky sea salt at this point (although I had trouble getting it to stick, and my kids don't like it, so I wasn't too fussed). I've read some recipes that also use an egg wash to make them shinier - I guess beat an egg and paint it on top?

Preheat the oven to 240C. Stick a tray of water down the bottom of the oven (improves the crust). Stick the pretzels in the oven and turn it down to 220C. Cook for 15 mins, then take out the tray with the water and turn down to 200C. Keep checking, and take them out when they look golden brown. 

Look and smell amazing. Taste good too - but mine just kind of tasted like bread rather than pretzels. And they weren't particularly sour, so perhaps I could've skipped the starter and the overnight and just added regular yeast and had the same result. Luckly, I like bread.

They go good with a beer. They also go good with vegemite. Ideally a butter knife and a jar of vegemite with a little smear on the bit you're going for before each bite. Butter or peanut butter works well too. Or just plain (but probably with beer).

Good pretzel-ing!