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Stracciatella Pretzels

With chocolate-maple syrup glaze!

By Laura MoraesPublished 5 years ago • 3 min read

Ever since I can remember, I have been obsessed with pretzels. Cannot go to the mall without passing by the pretzel stand at the end! However, baking them always seemed a bit daunting to me — I had no experience with yeast dough, shaping them looked difficult, and frankly it just looked pretty complicated to bake.

This changed a couple of years ago when I started to dip my toes into breadmaking, so after a few gos at yeast bread, I decided to go for pretzels. Turns out homemade pretzels are ridiculously easy to make, delicious, AND very customizable. After toying around with the basic recipe and making al kinds of dips, I decided to try out a stracciatella pretzel. The results are beutiful and delicious. Without further ado:

Stracciatella Pretzels

Ingredients for pretzeld dough:

  • 1 1/2 cups warm water (not too hot or it'll kill the yeast)
  • 1 packet of dry active yeast
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp salted plant-based butter, melted
  • 3 3/4 white flour
  • 4 tbsp shaved dark chocolate (chocolate chips or chunks won't work, chocolate needs to be very finely chopped)

Baking Soda Bath:

  • 5 cups water
  • 50 grams baking soda (1/4 cup, remove one tbsp)

Ingredients for glaze:

  • 4 tbsp margarine
  • 6 tbsp maple syrup
  • about 30 grams of dark chocolate

Baking instructions:

  • Boil water for the pretzel dough. While water is cooling down, heat butter. Meanwhile, whisk salt and flour thoroughly
  • After water and butter have cooled down, gently whisk yeast package into water until there are no clumps, and let it sit until mixture starts to foam (about 2 minutes). Then, add maple syrup and butter, and whisk together. Slowly (slowly!) add flour while mixing mixture with wooden spoon or paddle. After you've added about half the flour, add chocolate and mix some more. After combining all ingredients, the dough should be thick but does not stick to the bowl too much. Add more flour if needed, but add sparingly since too much flour can make the dough less flexible. When the dough is nice and bouncy (you can poke it gently with your fingers of your spoon), you're ready knead.
  • Knead dough on a floured surface for about five minutes, then allow it to rest, covered, for about 10 minutes.
  • While the dough is resting, prepare baking sheets (2 large or 3 medium) by lining them with parchment paper, if they are not completely nonstick.
  • Now it's time to shape the pretzels! take about a handful of dough at a time (don't start too big, but you can actually make the pretzels any size you'd like so go crazy). Roll the dough until it is a thin rope about an inch thick. The rope cannot be too thick because it will puff up a bit more before you put them in the oven. Now bring the ends of the rope together as if you're making a heart shape, twist the ends together, and pull them over the lower edge of the circle.

    • this is what your pretzels should look like

    Baking soda bath:

  • Combine water and baking soda in a pot and bring it to a rolling boil.
  • While water is warming, prehat oven to 400°F.
  • Take one pretzel at a time, put on a skimming ladle, and immerse ladle and pretzel in water for 20 seconds. Make sure to not leave it in too long or your pretzels will taste like baking soda.
  • Once pretzels are bathed, bake them for 13-20 minutes, until top is golden.
  • While pretzels are in the oven, combine ingredients for maple syrup glaze in a microwave safe container. Heat them and whisk with a fork until they're all comined. You can also play around with the amount of maple syrup used depending on how strong you want the taste to be.
  • Once pretzels are done, spread glaze over them with a pastry brush.

    • Voilà! You now have beautiful sweet pretzel goodness to enjoy.

    cuisine

    About the Creator

    Laura Moraes

    every day i write my silly little thoughts in my journal

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