Pretzel wars

I had no idea, when I first embarked upon the idea to bake pretzels for No.3 Sister, just how high tensions ran in the world of pretzel making. Freshly baked, salty pretzels are one of her favourite things and it just so happened that there was a recipe for pretzels in my newest baking book, Scandilicious Baking by Signe Johansen. Well, I say new, but I actually got it from my Dad for Christmas and I'm only now getting around to trying out the recipes.

All was going well as I gathered everything together and started mixing the dry ingredients with some honey and melted butter (which I thought would have more flavour than the listed oil). Then I looked to the recipe to see what the liquid component was and how much to add... nothing!! Puzzled and assuming an editorial glitch in the ingredient list, I read through the method once more to find that there was none. Sigh. Nothing upsets me more than poor editing, whether it's typos or (more critically) missing ingredients. As none of my other books had a pretzel recipe, I turned to my trusty friend, the internet. I managed to find what purported to be an 'Authentic German Pretzel' recipe (more of this later). It was similar to Johansen's but crucially, it added a mix of milk and water (that's more like it!). The result was eight soft, salty pretzels that were rather tasty if I do say so myself. Authentic, though? That, my friends, appears to be the million dollar question over which wars are currently being fought online.

When I made the pretzels, I followed both the Johansen and the 'Authentic' recipes' instructions to boil the pretzels in water and bicarbonate of soda before sprinkling with salt and baking in a hot oven. Curious after the recipe book fiasco, I went back on line to research some more pretzel recipes and methods to see what, if anything, I might change the next time I make them. I came across a pretzel blog-post on The Fresh Loaf (a fantastic site for amateur bread-makers / enthusiasts), which sparked a heated debate over whether or not the boiling water bath for the pre-baked pretzels should contain bicarb or lye (caustic soda to you or me). Apparently (at least according to some of the more vitriolic posts), if it's not a lye bath, then it's not an authentic German pretzel (though this was in turn debated by one poster whose German grandmother never used lye). Most people seem happy to compromise on authenticity for the safer and easier option of bicarb, as using lye requires rubber gloves and safety goggles and includes lots of caveats (e.g. don't use parchment paper to line your tin as it'll burn right through and it'll also take the non-stick layer from your non-stick tins). Yikes!

Bicarb or lye issues aside, I thought the pretzel twisting, then the boil / bake scenario would be terribly fiddly, but it was all much simpler than expected. The rather plump pretzels were declared a success by all of my sisters when we had them that afternoon, accompanied by cold beers and unusually hot Irish sun. Authentic? Who cares? Delicious? Most definitely. No.3 Sister, a connoisseur of pretzels, has requested more of the same for her birthday celebrations in a few weeks time. Perhaps, if I'm feeling brave I might even don goggles and gloves and get out the caustic soda. Stay tuned!