Pretzels are delicious. Warm and soft, day old toasted with a little mustard. Brush with melted butter when it comes out of the oven. I’ve drooling just thinking about it!
As you saw in my post about sourdough there are a million ways to use discard sourdough starter. Well, maybe not a million, but there sure are a lot!
One of which is pretzels. Now depending on your starter, these may be very sour, or just have a slight tang. My starter isn’t very sour yet, so the tang is just barely there.
I bascially followed this pretzel recipe, with a few changes.
PRETZELS
3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 cup sourdough starter, unfed/discard
3 cups Bread Flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon margerine
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1-2 tablespoons soy milk
1/2 cup baking soda
1 tablespoon kosher salt, or other large grain salt
- In a medium to large bowl, mix everything together, taking care to not let the yeast and salt touch before mixing into the flour. Add a touch more soy milk if the dough is too shaggy, but it will be a soft dough.
- Knead by throwing the dough onto the counter “slap and fold” for a few minutes. The dough will get noticably softer, and begin to hold together and strech rather tear.
- Place back in the bowl and cover with a damp tea towel. Let rest and rise for 45 minutes.
- Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Boil aprox. 1 1/2 quarts of water in a 3 quart pan. Once boiling add baking soda and reduce heat until ready to use. (It will act very weird, and almost splatter)
- Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Roll each piece into a long cylinder about 18-24 inches long. Shape into a pretzel shape and place on parchment paper.
- Once all pretzels have been shaped, carfully lift off parchment with a slotted spatula and lower into the boiling soda-water. Boil for 30 seconds and place back on parchment. Sprinkle with salt. Repeat for remaining pretzels. Once all pretzels have been dipped, bake for 25 miuntes, or until pretzels are a deep brown color, rotating pans once.
- Serve with mustard and enjoy!
