Sourdough Pretzel
Submitted by Jeff & Brenda Korson
Yield: 12 pretzels
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup lukewarm water *
- 1 cup sourdough starter, unfed/discard (recipe immediately following)
- 3 cups unbleached All-Purpose Flour
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1/4 cup Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
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2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) non-diastatic malt powder or 1 tablespoon sugar
-
1 tablespoon butter or vegetable oil
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1 1/2 teaspoons salt
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2 teaspoons instant yeast
*Add an additional 2 tablespoons water if using high-gluten Lancelot flour.
Sourdough Bread and Starter:
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1 1/2 c. warm water
3/4 c. sugar
3 tbsp. instant potato flakes
Instructions:
Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm water. Add remaining 1 cup water, sugar and instant potatoes. Leave mixture out of the refrigerator for 8 to 12 hours. Then, refrigerate for 3 days. Remove from refrigerator and feed with 1 cup warm water, 3/4 cup sugar and 3 tablespoons potato flakes. Leave at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours. Pour off 1 cup of the starter to make bread. Return remaining starter to refrigerator. To keep starter going, feed every 5 to 7 days.
Pretzel Topping:
- 1 tablespoon non-diastatic malt powder or sugar
- 2 tablespoons water
- pretzel salt
- 2 tablespoons melted butter, optional
Instructions:
- Mix and knead the dough ingredients — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — to make a cohesive, fairly smooth dough. It should be slightly sticky; if it seems dry, knead in an additional tablespoon or two of water.
- Cover the dough and let it rest for 45 minutes. It will rise minimally. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased work surface, fold it over a few times to gently deflate it, then divide it into 12 pieces, each weighing about 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 ounces.
- Roll each piece of dough into an 18″ rope. Shape each rope into a pretzel.
- Dissolve the malt in the water. Brush the pretzels with the solution, and sprinkle lightly with coarse pretzel salt.
- Bake the pretzels for 25 to 30 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown. Note: This is correct; there’s no need to let the shaped pretzels rise before baking.
- Remove the pretzels from the oven, and brush with melted butter, if desired.
