Home Made Pretzels
Degree of difficulty: High
1 packet active dry bread yeast
1 cup warm water
2 tbsp soft butter or margarine
2 3/4 cups bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
5 tsp baking soda or
Mix 1 tbsp bicarb soda to 1/2 cup warm water for glazing
Coarse salt if desired
In large bowl, combine 1 cup warm water and packet of yeast. Mix in 1-1/2 cups of flour, 2 tbsp margarine, 1/2 tsp salt and tbsp sugar. Beat the entire mixture for 3 mins to mix well.
Slowly mix in the remaining 1 -1/4 cups of flour, knead dough until all of the flour is mixed in and dough loses its stickiness. Set aside in a bowl and let it rise until dough reaches approx double original size.
Divide dough into 12 approx equal lengths. Using your palms, roll each piece into 30 cm lengths about pencil thickness. Loop and twist the lengths into pretzel shapes and place on greased baking sheet. Allow pretzels to rise again until they approx double in girth.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and ready a boiling solution of 4 cups of water and 5 tsp of baking soda in a shallow non aluminium. With a plastic spatula, carefully lift each pretzel from the sheet and lower it into the boiling baking soda solution for 15-20 secs – This will glaze pretzels when you bake them.
Sprinkle the pretzels with coarse salt, if desired, and bake approx 7 – 10 minutes until browned.