Brezel
Bavaria’s pretzel: bread in the shape of a knot, dipped in food-grade lye (or bicarbonate of soda) before baking to give it its dark, glossy crust. In Munich it’s eaten with butter or with white sausages.
Ingredients
- 500 g plain flour
- 7 g dried yeast
- 300 ml warm water
- 30 g butter
- 10 g salt
- 1 l water and 60 g bicarbonate of soda (for the bath)
- Coarse salt
How to make it at home
- Knead the flour with the yeast, water, butter and salt until you have a firm, smooth dough. Leave to rise for 1 hour.
- Divide into 8 pieces and roll into 50 cm ropes, thicker in the middle. Cross the ends twice and press them onto the thick part.
- Leave to rest uncovered for 20 minutes so a skin forms.
- Boil the water with the bicarbonate and dip each pretzel for 30 seconds. Drain them and sprinkle with coarse salt.
- Make a cut in the thick part and bake at 220 °C for about 15 minutes, until very dark.
The trick: With baked bicarbonate (an hour in the oven at 120 °C beforehand) the colour gets closer to lye.