Pretzels from scratch
Deciding to put homemade pretzels on the menu for The LOST Table felt like quite an over-promise.
If you’ve been around for a while and have read some of my older posts about baking, you might remember just how terrified I used to be of it. There was something about doing all that work and then leaving the final result entirely up to the oven that scared me. Completely irrational, I know, but I do think I’m finally getting over it.
For this one, we went through a ridiculous number of recipes and videos to understand how people were making pretzels, then tested our own version a few times before landing here.
One of my favourite discoveries was that you really don’t need an egg wash to get that beautiful brown pretzel crust. The colour comes from dipping the shaped dough in an alkaline bath made with baking soda and water before it goes into the oven. It also gives pretzels that very particular flavour and slightly chewy exterior.
And now I’ve learnt how to make another kind of bread, which feels like a tiny personal victory. One of the things I love most about The LOST Table is that every new menu forces me to try something I probably wouldn’t have attempted otherwise.
Recipe
Makes 10 small pretzels
Ingredients
For the dough
325 g all-purpose flour / maida
190 g warm water
5 g active dry yeast
13.5 g brown sugar
6.5 g salt
12.5 g melted butter
For the alkaline bath
1.5 litres water
75 g baking soda
To finish
Flaky salt or fleur de sel
Method
1. Make the dough
Mix the warm water, brown sugar and yeast and leave it for 10 minutes until you see some activity on the surface.
Add the flour and salt, followed by the melted butter.
Knead for about 8 minutes, until you have a smooth, firm and elastic dough. I use a KitchenAid with the dough hook. The dough should feel firm rather than sticky.
2. Let it rise
Shape the dough into a ball, place it in a lightly greased bowl and cover.
Leave it somewhere warm until it has grown to roughly 1.5 times its original size, around 60 minutes depending on the temperature of your kitchen.
3. Shape the pretzels
Divide the dough into 10 pieces of roughly 55 g each.
Roll each into a short log. Then slowly roll each piece into a long rope, around 40–45 cm.
If the dough keeps springing back, leave it alone for five minutes and come back to it. Fighting the dough does absolutely nothing except make you angry.
Bring the ends of the rope up into a U, cross them over each other, twist once more and fold the ends back down to make your pretzel.
Leave the shaped pretzels uncovered for around 10 minutes.
4. The baking soda bath
Preheat your oven to 220°C.
Bring the water to a gentle simmer and carefully add the baking soda. It will foam, so add it gradually.
Dip each pretzel into the bath for around 30 seconds, making sure the entire surface gets coated.
Lift it out, allow it to drain properly and place it onto a lined baking tray. Then sprinkle generously with flaky salt or fleur de sel.
No egg wash required.
5. Bake
Bake at 220°C for around 11 minutes, or until the pretzels are beautifully deep brown.
If your oven has hot spots, rotate the tray once during baking.
Let them cool slightly before eating.
Making them ahead
This was particularly important for us because making pretzels to order for an entire LOST Table service was obviously not happening.
Thankfully, these freeze brilliantly.
Bake them completely, allow them to cool all the way down and then freeze them in an airtight container or freezer bag. If you’re stacking them, put some baking paper between the layers.
When you want to serve them, thaw them at room temperature and pop them into a hot oven for about 2–3 minutes.
We’ve tested this ourselves and they come back remarkably well: warm, soft inside and slightly crisp around the edges.
What to eat them with
They’re fantastic straight out of the oven with nothing more than that flaky salt, but pretzels also happen to be an excellent excuse to make dips.
We’ve served and played around with everything from a beer cheese sauce to sweeter options like chocolate fudge and peanut butter fudge. A warm pretzel dragged through something completely excessive is rarely a bad idea.
These ended up being such a hit at The LOST Table that our guests were still tearing into them even after they were completely full.
Which has now put a slightly dangerous idea in my head: I think I might need to do a tiny pretzel sale sometime soon.
