The last time I made Laugenbrezeln from scratch I took a bunch of pictures and thought I share the process and the recipe.
Ingredients:
(I live in the metric world, so everything is in grams or milliliters)
350 g all purpose flour
10 g sugar
10 g salt
20 g of fresh yeast or 7 g of dry yeast
20 g soft unsalted butter
100 ml milk (room temperature)
100 ml water (room temperature)
We typically use fresh yeast but I know that it’s not so easily available in the US. I put the equivalent amount for dry yeast in the ingredients list, too.
Instructions:
Mix water, milk, sugar and yeast and set aside for the yeast to activate (about 10-15 min).
Mix dry ingredients and add yeast mixture and butter.
Knead into a firm dough.
Let it rise until it doubles in size
Separate in 100 g pieces
Roll each piece into a log that gets thinner towards both ends
To form pretzels form a loop and twist a knot at the top
Take both ends and flip them down on top of the thick part
Now it’s time to create the Lauge (lye).
In a large pot bring 1 liter of water to a boil. Add 50 grams of baking soda and reduce the heat to slightly below boiling temperature.
Add the pretzels to the lye one by one
Flip over after some seconds, take them out and put them on a baking sheet.
Cut a slit into the thick part of the pretzel and sprinkle with coarse salt or sesame seeds.
Bake at 180 Celsius until brown. Sorry, I never take the time when baking. Should be around 20-30 min.
Of course you can also make sticks or buns or whatever shape you like.
My daughter made hearts and stars
I didn’t know you used baking soda for the lye, the word lye makes me think of detective series. But baking soda sounds harmless enough. It looks like the lye is the only “special” step compared to regular bread baking so it looks like something I should be able to make at home. My favourite way to eat them is with a thick layer of butter on them and fresh chives.
