Blogtoberfest Day 8 - Pretzels

Will loves pretzels. We used to buy them from Bavarian Smallgoods, but they closed a year ago. Will keeps asking for them. So when I first looked through one of my Thermomix cookbooks and saw a pretzel recipe, I knew it would only be a matter of time until I made them for Will.

No photos of me dumping stuff into the Thermomix, but here's Mollie shaping the pretzels. She did all but one of them.

After shaping I put them in the boiling baking soda solution

Then popped them on the tray and sprinkled on the salt

After baking


Col and Moll both ate two. Will only ate one. Maybe he'll eat more tomorrow. I would have eaten more, but the Weight Watchers points on one is 6 points. Col said he would have liked a beer with his.

The recipe is from My Way of Cooking
Ingredients
400g milk
40g fresh yeast (I used two heaping teaspoons of Lowan Instant dried yeast)
600g flour
2 tsp salt
600g water
4 tbsp baking soda
coarse salt, to sprinkle

1. Place milk and fresh yeast into mixing bowl, warm up 2 min/37degC/speed 2
2. Add flour and salt, knead 2 min 30 sec/interval kneading cycle. Place the dough into a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size (approx. 30 minutes).
3. Preheat oven to 200degC.
4. Divide dough into 10 equal pieces and roll each onto a non-stick surface into a rope shape (60cm) which is thinner at the ends. To form pretzels take both ends, twist them 2 times and flip them over onto the thicker part of the rope.
5. Bring water with baking soda to boil in a pot. One at a time, place pretzels onto a skimmer and dunk them into the boiling salt solution for 30-60 seconds, then place them on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Sprinkle with coarse salt and bake in a preheated oven at 200 deg C for 15 minutes. Cool for several minutes before serving or serve them cold.