Monday 7 January - Soft Pretzels

After yesterdays bagel success, George demanded to move onto New York style soft pretzels.  I had no idea where to start with these, so asked on the food board, and AZCook sent over several links - we used the New York Style pretzels as not much access to lye in Gosport on a Monday evening.

First a basic bread dough was made, and left to rise until doubled in size

This was then expertly shaped by George, and the pretzels were left to rise again.

They were then boiled, in a similar way to the bagels, but bicarbonate of soda and sugar were added to the water. They were then left to drain on a cooling rack - something I would do next time for bagels as this stage seemed to prevent them sticking to the trays.

The boiled pretzels were then brushed with egg, sprinkled with salt and baked for 15 minutes until brown.

Next time I'll start the dough in the bread machine to save on rising time, but overall pretty pleased with these for a first attempt.