Pretzels!!

My downfall in life seems to be bread, in particular, Sourdough Bread. As a child I was known to be able to consume at least half a loaf of sourdough bread from Panera in one sitting. It got a little out of control for a while. I’m better now. I’ve learned the ways of a nutritious diet that includes some form of greenery, maybe a little protein in there. I still get very excited about bread though.

This week we made pretzels and that’s just really close to heaven for me. They taste very similar to the ones I have to get under any circumstance when I go to a baseball game, only four THOUSAND times better. They are so fluffy and chewy, it’s ridiculously good. They also ruin me for the rest of my life because now the pretzels at the baseball game are going to make me sad by their lack of flavor. Boo. To make it even worse, we used a grape sour starter for the bread that took 6 weeks to develop. I may not be ambitious enough to undertake that in my own kitchen, but I do really love sourdough, so we’ll just see how we go. The dough is really simple, aside from the starter:

10 oz Water

¼ oz Yeast

9 oz Grape Starter

20 oz Bread Flour

1 Tbsp Malt or Honey

2 tsp Salt

You mix, let it rise, form into pretzels, rise again, and bake. To help pretzels get that chewy crust, you dip them lye or a mixture of 2oz baking soda and a pint of water right before you bake them, fairly simple. Maybe I will start my own sours at home. I probably won’t regret it.

I’m now off to make a birthday cake. If it turns out well, I’ll probably post it tomorrow. If it doesn’t turn out well, I’ll definitely post about it tomorrow.