Is a Pretzel Rush sweeping Sacramento? We’d like to help if so.
“What are pretzels?” They are a type of baked bread made from dough that is commonly shaped into a knot. Pretzels are a traditional food fare originating from southern Germany.
We now also bake ‘Laugenbrezn,’ as they are called in Germany. Soft pretzels as they are made in southern Germany: lively sourdough, a pinch of malted flour, formed by hand into intricate shapes, rested overnight for the development of natural flavor, bathed for seconds in food-grade lye to break down the starches, and baked in a hot kitchen oven the old-fashioned way. Nothing less, period.
Nothing like the ‘abominable’ Aunt Annie’s or Wetzel’s pretzels. Theirs are more like starchy pastries and very unlike original German soft pretzels. Our German-style pretzels, baked here in Sacramento, excel with a unique aroma, red-brown color, malty flavor, and tantalizing crunch and chew. Nope, we won’t cheat on you.
We bake soft pretzels the traditional way and with simple ingredients: flour, malt, water, salt, and some butter. Even our sourdough is nothing but a long-fermented batter of wild yeast, flour, and water. We dare not add any sweeteners, preservatives, or artificial ingredients to our pretzel dough.
We top our pretzels with coarse salt, and sometimes with sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, or poppy seeds. We sometimes eat our pretzels with Weisswurst and sweet mustard. And we may have a lager with it!
A Word about Pretzel Styles
Pretzel Twist (Brezen)
German pretzels come in different styles or shapes. The Swabien and Bavarian styles differ in that the Swabian pretzel sports a bulge in the middle of the rope with very tapered ends, while the Bavarian pretzel is shaped more evenly all around. With little of a belly, Bavarian pretzels do not get a slash, and the dough bursts randomly while the pretzel bakes. Swabian pretzels tend to have one large “window” below the arms, and two much narrower ones between them. Bavarian pretzels display three equally sized windows framed by arms.
We do not care that much about these ‘parochial’ style differences, and so do perhaps our customers. But we care more about the basics of German pretzels: their pure ingredients and unique method of preparing them with sourdough and bathed in lye for exceptional aroma, flavor, crunch, and chew. And that, we hope, guarantees our discerning customers’ satisfaction.
Pretzel Knot (Butterbrezen)
Knotted pretzels may be called butter pretzels, ballpark pretzels, pretzel knots, or just soft pretzels. Again, pretzel styles and names are not carved into stones, especially here in the US. Large windows framed by arms, no spaces at all, or anything in between—pretzels are good to go in our kitchen. We bake them the way our customers like them best.
However, original German butter pretzels do not have open windows between the arms. That makes them ideal to be sliced horizontally in half, like a bagel, and one or each half smeared with butter to form a “butter sandwich.” To go further, insert slices of ham and cheese for a substantial lunch treat. They are also amazing simply slathered with garlic butter.
Pretzel Roll (Laugenbrötchen)
The Laugenbrötchen is pretzel dough formed into small round balls. These pretzels are becoming more popular in the U.S. Slice them in half and add butter, ham, and cheese for a great snack.
Pretzel Logs (Laugenstangen)
The Laugenstange is pretzel dough formed into a small elongated log. These pretzels are also growing in popularity. Slice them in half, and add butter and a sausage with sweet mustard for a great snack.
Pretzel Nuggets (Laugenbisse)
The Laugenbisse is pretzel dough formed into a small rectangular bite or nugget. It is also growing in popularity. Buy half a dozen and dip each in sweet mustard for a great snack.
A Word about Lye
We ‘bath’ our formed pretzel dough in lye just before baking. Lye is a caustic soda solution made from water and sodium hydroxide. Even at only 4%, this low-alkaline solution can still cause slight chemical burns on the skin and should be handled with respect. So, we all wear rubber gloves while doing the lye routine.
Effectively, however, the use of lye brings forth many nutritional and flavor changes in the dough during baking. The transformation is dramatic as the lye reacts with the starch, which is a complex sugar or polysaccharide. The lye breaks down this polysaccharide into monosaccharides, also known as maltose (malz zucker).
Since the pretzel dough was made to develop skin before the bath, the lye will not penetrate the dough beyond the skin. At high heat, the maltose in the skin then caramelizes (Maillard browning reaction) during baking and that is how the pretzel gets a thin, deep reddish-brown crust with rich flavors, including salinity, as well as chew. Especially, the application of lye imparts a unique pretzel aroma while spurring the formation of others. Go smell a pretzel!
All the remaining lye on or around the pretzel evaporates during the baking process and/or reacts with the carbon dioxide in the hot air and converts to harmless baking soda. In other words, the lye loses all of its reactive faculties.
Thus, we can eat delishious pretzels without getting a stomach ache.
A Word about Butter
Adding butter, an emulsifier, cuts long gluten strands as it adds even more flavor. This helps the dough to be less elastic and more extensible. We prefer unsalted butter from grass-fed cows. We use Kerrygold Pure Irish, Plugrá Premium European Style, Horizon Organic, Trader Joe’s, and/or Kirkland (Costco) unsalted butter brands for baking.