I’ve never made pretzels. I thought they were one of those things you can make at home, but they’re never as good as those hot street pretzels you get in New York City, because they need to be dipped in lye.
I might have been right, although I think maybe I did something wrong.
My dough turned out really well. Beautiful, and easy to work with. As I shaped it into pretzel shapes, I started to get excited and hopeful. Finally! I’ll have pretzels at home.
The lye bath in this recipe is replaced with a baking soda bath instead. This is a fairly common step in making pretzels at home, sparing the cook from having to deal with lye, which somehow seems very scary.
I had some issues with the pretzels in the bath – a few started to break apart, but I got several perfect specimens.
The pretzels go into the oven, and then come out brown and smelling perfectly pretzel-y. Melted butter and cinnamon sugar top the warm pretzel, and then it’s time to taste.
My pretzels tasted like baking soda. Awful! I did a bit of research and found this article by Howard McGee – an interesting take on it, he suggests cooking the baking soda in the oven first to bump up the alkali, then boil the pretzels for several minutes in 2/3 cup of baked soda with 2 cups of water. THEN he says to rinse the pretzels before baking.
Alton Brown’s pretzel recipe uses 2/3 cup of baking soda to 10 cups of water, but only a 30-second boil. I’m interested in experimenting some more with this (starting with a new box of baking soda just to be safe).
For the recipe and to see how the other Baked Sunday Morning bakers fared, head over to Baked Sunday Mornings.
- Whole-Wheat Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels (Baked Elements, p. 133)
Hi Sheri! My pretzels had a slight baking soda taste as well, but it wasn’t overwhelming and I actually liked it, because it gave it that signature pretzel taste. I think I had each pretzel in the bath for possibly a minute TOTAL, rather than a minute per side as Baked’s recipe suggests… did you have them in the bath maybe too long? I also boiled the heck out of that water, and the pretzels. There were times it was foaming up so much I couldn’t see the pretzels! Maybe the water needs to really be a ROLLING boil, with a brief dip for the pretzels? All thoughts to consider. I need to check out the links you provided. I had heard about baking the soda first. Nice try… your pretzels and mine look a lot alike, actually!
Good for you for trying these, Sheri! I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
One time I bought a brand of Baking Soda other than Arm & Hammer which I’ve always used, and the flavor was so bad and so dominating that it ruined everything I used it in. Needless to say, I threw it away & have never strayed again!
I’m sorry the pretzels did not end up tasting very good. They look great! I had only made pretzel rolls before and didn’t really think about the baking soda bath being a bit long; luckily mine seemed to taste okay.
Hi Sheri!
All very thoughtful comments above. I too will try shortening the boil next time. I can’t think of any other reason why the pretzels would taste so strongly of baking soda. Alton Brown knows, like, everything about baking science– I would trust him. :)
Yeah, lye makes me think of burning acid on your skin (from Fight Club)– not something I would want in my kitchen!!
We sure are learning a lot, aren’t we!
Yeah, I had the overwhelming baking soda taste, too. I do want to try the recipe again with just a short dip in the baking soda bath — hopefully that will work… I hate to give up on the recipe, since the dough was easy to make and it was otherwise pretty straightforward… How awesome would it be to be able to make a warm mall pretzel at home? :)