Sunday, February 21, 2010

Heavy metal pretzels

Now, if I were Dave Barry, I'd probably say that "heavy metal pretzels" is an excellent name for a rock band. But I'm not, and it probably isn't, anyway.

What it is, however, is an apt description of my first foray into pretzel-making yesterday. I love to bake, and have slowly been conquering my fear of baking anything that involves yeast. I've made a few simple loaves of bread, tea rolls last week, and I decided that yesterday, for a playdate with two of Abby's friends who love to bake, we'd try pretzels.

The playdate never happened, but the dough was ready, so I got Abby and Timmy to roll and shape it, which they enjoyed.

Then the recipe called for a boiling-water-and-baking-soda bath, using a large pot or a roasting pan. Figuring a wider, flatter pan would be easier to get the pretzels out of after 30 seconds, I got out my roasting pan.

The boiling water bath was easy, although the pretzels got quite plump as soon as they hit the water. Even though the recipe says it makes 8 pretzels, I bet I could have made at least 12 and they would have been big enough.

After the jacuzzi dunk, the kids brushed the pretzels with a beaten egg and sprinkled salt. A few minutes in the oven, and out they came. They were beautiful! We couldn't wait to try them.

When they were cool enough, I took one pretzel and divided it in thirds for Abby, Timmy and me. And they were delicious...except that somehow the baking soda bath had picked up the aluminum taste of the roasting pan. The outside tasted metallic and yucky, although the inside was very good (I hollowed out another whole pretzel to make sure!)

We will definitely try making them again, but I'll use my stainless-steel stockpot instead. No one likes heavy metal pretzels.

1 comment:

cmmoore said...

HA!
I decided to conquer yeast a few years ago and I think my first try was with pretzels, lol Lesson learned was that it is really important to use fresh yeast, not one that is rapidly approaching the expiration date. They were good, although they were not as soft as they could have been.

Made them again about a year ago with fresh yeast and it made a big difference. You should try bagels next! They are very involved, but they are yummy!