Soft Homemade Pretzels

Pretzels are the perfect snack. These warm and buttery homemade soft pretzels or Bretzel as they are called in Germany are so easy to make and super delicious. It’s surely worth the time to make them to get the incomparable homemade taste.

📝 Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 4 cups all-purpose flour (, 520g)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (, 88g)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup baking soda
• 4 cups boiling water
• 1 egg yolk (for egg wash)
• 1 tablespoon water (add to egg yolk for egg wash)
• Coarse salt (or to taste)

👨‍🍳 Instructions

1. 1In a small bowl first add sugar. Then pour in warm water. Dissolve the yeast in the bowl of warm water. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.
2. 2In a big bowl, mix together the flour, salt and brown sugar. Then make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour in the yeast mixture along with the vegetable oil into the dry ingredients. Mix and form this into a dough. If the dough is a bit dry you can add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water.
3. 3Once the dough comes together turn it out to a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough until it’s smooth ( about 8 minutes ).
4. 4Lightly oiled a large bowl. Place the kneaded dough in the bowl. Turn it once to coat the dough with the oil. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and put it in a warm place. Let the dough rise till double in size ( about 1 hour ).
5. 5Preheat the oven to 200 degree C ( 400 degree F ). Then grease 2 baking dish.
6. 6In a large baking dish dissolve baking soda in the hot water. Set aside.
7. 7When the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Flatten the dough slightly.
8. 8Divide the dough into 12 equal sizes. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape.
9. 9Once all the dough is shaped, dip each pretzel one at a time into the hot baking soda water solution and place them on the baking dish.
10. 10Once all the pretzels are on the baking dish, brush the top of the pretzels with egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with salt. (if you’d rather have cinnamon sugar pretzels, then don’t put the salt on).
11. 11Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 8 minutes depending on size. Take them out and brush with melted butter. Then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar if you had not put the salt earlier on.
12. 12Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving