Pretzels

These are the crunchy ones I made when I posted first.

I fell in love with the pictures on Cream Puffs in Venice: The Month of Bread: Perfect Pretzels and decided to try out the Pretzels.

I read about Pretzels here and was intrigued by its history, significance and associated legends. To me Pretzel now stands for a warm satiating Sunday breakfast cuddled in an arm chair in my sit out with a newspaper and a large masala tea.

I have tried the hard, soft and the chewy pretzels. The dough is the same only the baking time is increased in the order lowest for soft, longer for chewy and longest for hard. My favorite the chewy kind. The design too varies for shaping the pretzel. I think a double twist looks prettier.

I love the Pretzel's chewy, sweet n salty taste and above all they are absolutely fat free unless you do like here, butter them up! Plus they look oh so pretty!

Go try them right away.

Updated 5th Sep 2012

Hot Buttered Pretzels

For the dough:
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1.5 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup warm water or more

For the pretzel topping:
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp. sugar
salt 
2 tbsp melted butter

In the 1 cup warm water add sugar and yeast and let it bloom for 10 mins.

In the food processor bowl add all the ingredients mentioned for the dough and run it till it comes together. It may be a little sticky but that's how it should be. Sprinkle a handful of flour on the ball. Let it rest for 30 mins or about 50% proofing. Which means the volume should be 1.5 times the original. 

Meanwhile preheat oven to 250 deg Celsius. Keep the baking tray oiled and ready.

Divide your dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece out into a long rope that’s roughly 24 inches in length or less so you get nice pretzels, you don't want skinny ones. 

Taking hold of the ends of the rope, cross the rope over itself to form a circle with about 4 to 5 inches on each end that are sticking out. Twist the ends over themselves and secure each end on either side of the pretzel.

Dissolve the sugar in the warm water and set aside.

Carefully dip the pretzels one by one in the sugar water and then place on baking tray.

Sprinkle the pretzels with the salt and let them rest for about 15 minutes.

Put the pretzels in the oven for 15 minutes, they should brown evenly, bake longer if they are thicker to get that golden color.

Remove the pretzels from the oven and immediately brush them with the butter. Today they were very chewy. Yum.

Notes: I made them this time using my food processor for kneading the dough and baked on convection mode. Plus I made the pretzels thicker to get the chew, so you see them plump.