Japexican On the GO!: A treat for the little German inside you. Brezeln (German soft Pretzels)

I know, I know… The tittle sounds wrong, but the taste of these awesome German soft pretzels is so right.

So, the other day I was talking about food with my newly acquired German roommates, while reminiscing about my old times in Germany, I remembered that a good friend of mine gave me his grandma's Brezeln recipe, and it had been a while since I last made them, so I told them, roomies, prepare yourselves for some kick ass Brezeln. Baking them yourself is not a common thing in Germany, or in any other country, I mean, you can always find them cheap and good on the streets or bakeries or even supermarkets. But when you are exiled in a tiny town in Spain, without the access to many of the culinary treats you are used to, well, you do what you have to do.

The day came, and we ended up having Germans over for dinner on Sunday, and they loved them. So, they should be good judges on the authenticity of the taste and texture of this awesome bread. But you will be the ultimate judge. So prepare your taste buds for my German Brezeln. Butter or senf (German mustard) for serving, marmalade or Nutella, try all combinations, get yourself full of delicious starch and fall into a food coma afterwards. Thank me later.

Btw, you can save yourself the trouble of actually making the pretty knots that make up a pretzel and make some rolls, this go awesomely with burgers or any type of sandwich… just saying….

Just look at those bad boys!!!

You will need:

Brown Sugar: Around half a cup. We want to feed the yeast and also this will give a certain sweetness to the dough.
Oil: A bit more of a quarter of a cup.
Salt: A pinch for the dough and plenty more for sprinkling. A flaky salt is preferred here.
Flour: Between5 3/4 cups and 6 cups. This will depend on the your height above sea level and the humidity of your city. To be on the safe side, start with the first 5 1/2 and slowly add more, up to 6, depending on how you see the dough.
Yeast: 2 packets of dry active yeast. You can also use fresh yeast, but don't sweat it if I you don’t find.
Water: Around 2 cups for the dough and like 1.5 liters for bathing the Brezeln.
Sodium Bicarbonate: 2/3 of a cup should do it. Originally, the recipe calls for fucking Sodium Hydroxide, which is pretty nasty and dangerous to handle. But bicarb will do the trick.
Egg: 1, you are making an egg wash with the egg and some cold water.
Nutella, butter, senf, marmalades and any other thing you can imagine to put on them.

The Ingredients.

Let's get to it!

First things firs, we need to wake the yeast up. To do that, we are going to take a big bowl and dissolve the brown sugar in warm water and then dissolve both packets of yeast. You need to be a little careful here, if the water is too hot, the yeast will die, if its too warm, it will not wake up and do awesome things to your dough.
Let it rest for at least 10 minutes in a warm place. Do something else, a couple YouTube videos will suffice. When you come back, the yeast will be awake and ready, you will know because it will start foaming up like crazy. (See picture below). At this point you want to add the oil and salt, and mix it vigorously.
Start adding the first 4 cups of flour, little by little while you stir and mix with a wooden spatula. By now you should have a very sticky dough, pour it over your working table and its time to get your hands working. Continue adding the rest of the flour while you work it, knead it.
Knead it constantly until you achieve a smooth dough (see picture below), it should not be sticky anymore. Make a ball, cover it with oil, put it back to the bowl. Cover it with a towel and put it in a warm place for resting. The microwave makes a perfect place for the dough to rest and grow (just don’t turn it on while the dough is in) it keeps the warmth and humidity pretty well. In around 30 minutes it should have doubled in size.
When your dough has risen, punch it and deflate it. You can now cut it into pieces. This recipe should yield between 16-20 good sized Brezeln. It all depends on how big you want them.
Now its time to work the dough a little bit and make the knots. You want to oil your table a little bit (Not flour!). Basically, take a ball of dough, and roll it with your hands in an outward motion. Once you achieved the desired length, make a U shape, twist and pinch the ends on the center of the U. (Or again, save yourself the trouble and make some rolls or buns with the same dough).
Line up some parchment paper and put the newly formed Brezel on it to rest and rise again. Leave them around 30 minutes more like this.
In the mean time, take 1.5 - 2 liters of water to a boil. Dissolve the sodium bicarbonate and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.
Now take your Brezeln and one by one put them into the Sodium Bicarbonate bath for around 30 - 45 seconds. You can flip them at around 15 seconds, or not. What I do is that I put belly down the side I want to leave up while baking. Then just flip it when putting it back to the baking tray.
Once your baking tray is full, brush some egg-wash on top of them, sprinkle with the flaky salt and if you want, make some cuts along the sides, they will just look pretty.
Lets bake them. Around 12 minutes at 230 ºC or until deeply golden brown.
Take them out and let them cool a bit, while you work the next batch.
Enjoy. Smear whatever goodness you want. Take a photo. Share. Thank me later.