Rye Pretzels
These ultra-chewy, delightfully tasty soft pretzels are just the ticket served with hot-sweet mustard.
Dough
2 cups (16 ounces) room-temperature water
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3 cups (13 1/4 ounces) King Arthur Organic High-Gluten Flour
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) pumpernickel flour
2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) non-diastatic malt powder or sugar
1 tablespoon (1/4 ounce) Deli Rye Flavor (optional, but key to the pretzels' flavor)
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
Water bath
6 cups (48 ounces) water
2 tablespoons (1 1/8 ounces) baking soda
2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) non-diastatic malt powder, barley malt syrup, or sugar
Topping
kosher salt; pretzel salt; herb salt substitute; caraway seeds; sesame seeds, or a combination
Mix and knead together all of the dough ingredients—by hand, mixer, or bread machine—to make a soft (though not very sticky) dough. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise until it's doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Grease two baking sheets, or line them with parchment paper. Start heating the water to a boil.
Deflate the dough, kneading it briefly to expel any air bubbles. Divide it into 16 pieces. Roll each piece into an 18" rope about 1/2" in diameter. Take each rope and make a loop with fairly short ends. Fold the loop over the ends to form the traditional pretzel shape.
By the time you've formed all the pretzels, the water should be boiling. Turn it down to a simmer, and add the baking soda and malt or sugar. Carefully pick up each pretzel and slide it into the water, cooking about four at a time. Make sure there's plenty of room between them; the pretzels will expand quickly and dramatically.
Simmer pretzels for about 2 minutes, flip them over, and simmer for another minute. Use a spatula or slotted spoon to transfer the pretzels to a rack to drain, sprinkling with topping immediately after removing from the water bath.
Place the topped pretzels on the prepared baking sheets. Bake them for 12 to 15 minutes, until well browned. Remove from the oven, and serve immediately; they're best eaten warm. Mustard is a nice dipping option. Reheat any leftovers VERY briefly in the microwave, if desired. Yield: 16 pretzels.
Reviews
08/29/2009
Most of the ingredients are not readily available in the grocery stores, so I had to substitute many of them. This may or may not be the reason that our pretzels were overly chewy and too heavy. For the High-gluten flour, I used the baking flour plus a vital wheat gluten in a proportion of 1tbs of the gluten to the each of the 3 cups of flour. Then I substituted rye flour for the pumpernickel flour. And then, for the non-diastatic malt powder or sugar, I used a barley malt syrup. I could also not find Deli Rye Flavor. So out of 7 of the original ingredients I needed to substitute 5 of them.
10/11/2009
I was able to get all of the ingredients from KA online so I did not have a problem. These has a great flavor and were relatively easy to make (although, I probably would not advise making it unless you have some experience with bread!). I will say that there was no "drama" when they were put into the water bath. . . maybe I missed something or maybe my standard of drama is different
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