So I did something else today beside tease Sadie with meat gristle! I made hot pretzels! Two trays of ‘em.
I followed the recipe here, which is from Good Eats. I had watched Alton Brown make them a couple weeks ago on TV and after wiping the drool from my boobs (geez, those things collect everything) I decided I MUST MAKE THEM!
I only made a couple changes out of necessity to the pattern. First, I was just a tad short on AP flour, so I had to use a little bit of wheat flour to make up the difference. The dough ended up being very sticky – I couldn’t remember, was it supposed to be THIS sticky??? So while the dough was kneading in the mixer, I sprinkled in about a 1/4 cup more of the whole wheat flour. The dough was still sticky, but manageable.
Secondly, the salt. Now Mr Brown is a big proponent of multi-tasking on his show. That means that whatever he uses in his kitchen must do multiple things. However, he generally only applies this to hardware – gadgets and tools and stuff. He NEVER applies this to actual ingredients, often recommending purchasing weird and exotic recipe-specific ingredients that you could really not apply to anything else. Not OFTEN, but enough.
For the pretzel recipe, he recommends buy pretzel salt. On the show he explains that pretzel salt is made by compacting smaller crystals of salt together, so that they break apart and dissolve quickly on the tongue. This gives them a more pleasing salty flavor and texture.
Whatever. What do you use pretzel salt for? To make pretzels. How often are you going to make pretzels? I don’t know, couple times a year, maybe? At the most? Probably not often enough to go online and buy a couple pounds of it. None of the grocery stores around me carry it. And even if they did, I’m not sure I would buy it. I have enough crap in my kitchen, I don’t want to store excess!
What I do have plenty of is coarse sea salt. Which is crunchy and salty and good enough, dammit.
The “split” look I got with the finished pretzels I think is because even though I oiled the bowl and covered it to let the dough rise, I still got some crust forming. The crust got twisted into the shapes and then split when cooked. Doesn’t affect the taste AT ALL, though.
And ohhh…so good. With mustard!
Haben Sie Deutsch in Ihrer Familie, ESC? Because I do, and I need to get this recipe from Alton Brown’s site…
nien. Italia, polska, and welsh.
I just love me some real, salty hot pretzels.
Nom nom nom… DO WANT!
Oooh, thanks for the linky! I need to get my mixer out and dust it off – my boys would kill for these.
Next time I see you, remind me to tell you a little something something about AB.
OMG, those look soooooooo good!
I am starting to drool a bit, here at work, which is completely inappropriate BTW as my coworkers are starting to search for a bucket! These look totally wonderful!! Have you tried his recipe for granola bars? They are really good too!
I am turning off the computer and running ot the kitchen. I can walk to the store for good mustard while the dough is rising. YUM!
FM – good to know you’re still around, sweetie! Make another road trip, and I’ll make you all the pretzels you want!
Sandy – oh I bet you have ALLLLL the good dirt on AB! sweeeeet.
Aimee – they are! too bad the smellernet hasn’t been invented yet, because they smelled SO GOOD out of the oven!
Smug – I haven’t tried them yet, no. but I’m allergic to nuts, so I need to tweak those recipes, usually. Don’t short out your computer keyboard with drool!
Terri – oooo! and take pictures, too!
Oh my sweet effing lord, how I do love the pretzels! I would make them a couple times a WEEK if I had any culinary talents.
A lot of people think that pretzels belong to the bread family, but actually they’re knot bread..hahahahahaha!!!
dude, they are so easy. Follow the directions. Baking according to directions requires no flair, no extra skilz, nada. Because if you try to get creative, things tend to go wrong (like subbing 4oz of wheat flour and getting sticky dough). Follow the directions, and you can’t go wrong.
Mmm, wow those look good! But what really drove me to comment (I’m more of a lurker, though this is my first time here) was the fact that you eat them with mustard.
I. love. mustard. And I thought I was the only one who ate it on pretzels or breadsticks. Glad to see someone else does it too!
But, did the sea salt substitution work? That is the question.
You know, sometimes reading your blog makes me want to bake. And then the fact that it’s 90* in my house reminds me that baking is not such a good idea tonight.
ekittie – mustard is essential. and not any fancy mustard, and nothing chunky. plain yellow mustard. Mmmmm!
Julie – yes…sort of. I kind of overdid the salt, so they turned out extra salty. I didn’t expect so much to stick.
The splits could be from using the wheat flour too–it absorbs more water than AP, if I remember right.