Homemade Soft Pretzels | Homemade Soft Pretzels Recipe | Eat the Love (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret ingredient which makes a pretzel taste like a pretzel? ›

But it's the distinctive "pretzel" flavor that makes this bread extraordinary. That comes from dipping the shaped dough in an alkaline solution — traditionally a small amount of food-grade lye dissolved in water — before baking.

As noted above, baking soda is a staple ingredient for making homemade pretzels. Dunking your pretzels in a baking soda bath prior to baking is what enables them to develop their distinctive color and crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside texture.

The answer lies in a brief dip in an alkaline water bath before baking. This bath essentially gelatinizes the outside of the pretzel, preventing it from fully “springing” during baking (as bread does) and giving pretzels their signature chewy crust. It also gives them their unique and indelible “pretzel” flavor.

Bread flour provides more structure

Gluten helps provide structure, allowing a baked good to have more body and sturdiness. As a result, bread flour will make it easier for a pretzel to hold its shape. This can be an advantage to beginner bakers, especially since the shape of a pretzel is so important.

Soft pretzels are large and have a chewy texture. They're usually served individually and are commonly sold at concession stands, restaurants, and bakeries. Meanwhile, hard pretzels are small and crunchy and can be eaten by the handful, depending on their shape.

The type of flour you use will also make a difference. All purpose or bread flour is a good choice for making pretzels. If your flour is higher than 13% however it may result in a denser crumb.

Storing Freshly Baked Soft Pretzels

For those times when you have freshly baked soft pretzels, here's how to keep them tasting great: Cool Before Storage: Let pretzels cool completely to avoid moisture build-up. Individually Wrapped: Wrap each pretzel in plastic wrap to protect against dry air.

Choose a bowl that will be large enough to contain the dough after it has doubled in size, and grease it lightly with butter. Transfer the dough to the greased bowl and cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Put the dough in the refrigerator to rise for at least 8 hours, and up to 24 hours, for optimal flavor.

Ideally, you would use pretzel salt when making pretzels. But this type of salt is not always easy to find in the store. That's why many people turn to kosher salt instead. And indeed, these two types of salt have a lot in common.

Lye is primarily used to make pretzels, and it's the reason for their unmistakable shiny, mahogany color. To prepare, shaped pretzels are dipped in a lye bath, then baked in the oven.

Can you use baking soda instead of lye for pretzels? ›

All you do is dissolve ½ cup of baking soda in 8 cups of water, bring the solution to a boil, lower it to a simmer (heating the solution makes it more reactive and effective), and briefly dunk each pretzel in it. Then you salt and bake the pretzels.

Lye-dipped pretzels, or in this case, pretzel buns, have a distinctive flavour that is both savoury and slightly bitter. The lye, a strong alkaline solution, is used to give the pretzels their characteristic dark brown colour and chewy exterior.

Tasting Notes:

The typical pretzel has a pleasant cracker-like flavor, a crisp, brittle texture and a brown glossy surface color. Salt crystals are often sprinkled on its surface to make them taste more appealing. Pretzels have a moisture content of anywhere from 2-4% and therefore have a very long shelf life.

The distinctive flavor of pretzel bread comes from the use of lye in the baking process, which gives it a slightly tangy and salty taste. This bread is often shaped into small rolls or larger loaves, making it versatile for various culinary applications.

Soft pretzels are just a yeast bread is that formed into a pretzel shape. The one big difference in pretzel making, as opposed to a regular bread, is that pretzels are boiled and then baked. It is the boiling that gives the outside of the pretzel its beautiful golden brown color and uniquely crisp and chewy texture.