Sourdough Soft Pretzels

I love soft pretzels especially after living in Philadelphia for 20 years where they are sold on every street corner downtown. I have made my own but now that we are basically gluten free except for sourdough in our house, I determined to find a recipe for sourdough pretzels and make them. They fit very well in a cold January day when it is really nice to have the oven running.

I found a nice recipe from  Sarcastic Cooking for these Soft Sourdough Pretzels.

I started these on a Wednesday mixing up the batter and letting them rise overnight.  Contrary to the recipe’s instructions I try and let all my sourdough baked goods rise for a minimum of 24 hours to help breakdown the gluten so the finished product is more digestible.

The following morning I rolled them out by hand into these long strips and let them rest all morning.

Then I twisted them into a pretzel shape (some are prettier than others as you can see.) before popping them into the pot of boiling water with baking soda in it.

After boiling just until the pretzel floated they were removed, sprinkled with salt and then baked in the oven.

Friends were over that day so we made short work of most of these after they came out of the oven.  With 1 boy and 3 girls of my own and then a friend and her 3 boys not much was left.  We will have to make these again sometime soon.  They were very easy and tasty.

Sourdough Soft Pretzels

 

Author:

Stephanie at Sarcastic Cooking adapted by Jennifer Dages

Recipe type: Sourdough

Serves: 7

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A simple sourdough whole wheat pretzel recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 1 cup warm water
• 3 cups white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp baking soda in 4 quarts of boiling water
• 1 egg white
• Coarse sea salt

Instructions

1. Mix the flours and salt together using a whisk in a large bowl.
2. Add in the starter, water, and oil and knead until smooth.
3. Shape the batter into a ball and place it in a warm area to rise for about 12-14 hours.
4. When the dough has almost doubled in size, punch the batter down and knead it for a few more minutes.
5. Break off 1 inch wide strips and roll them into snake like shapes.
6. Let the dough rise for another 2-4 hours.
7. Bring the water and baking soda to a boil in a large pot.
8. While the water comes up to temperature, form the pretzel shape with each piece of dough.
9. When the water is at a rolling boil, add each pretzel one at a time to the boiling water.
10. When the pretzel rises to the top remove it from the water and place it on a wire rack to cool.
11. Brush the boiled pretzel with egg white and dust it with coarse sea salt.
12. Continue this process until all seven pretzels have been boiled.
13. Place the pretzels on a baking sheet and put into a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes.

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