Pretzels, Sticks and Rolls

1. Preheat the oven to 35 °. Pour 1 liter of water into a bowl, carefully sprinkle in the carefully weighed lye pearls and dissolve in them while stirring. Have disposable gloves ready if necessary.
2. Put the flour in a larger bowl and mix with the salt. Heat the water, add the butter and let it melt in it. Pour in the cold milk and use it to cool everything down to a lukewarm temperature. Crumble the yeast into the lukewarm mixture, dissolve it while stirring and pour it into the flour. Now knead everything with the dough hook of the hand mixer or with the help of a food processor to a non-sticky, smooth dough. Seal the bowl with the finished dough with aluminum foil and let rise in the warm oven for 45 minutes. The dough volume should have doubled at least.
3. Knead the dough well again with your hands on the work surface and then shape it into a thick roll. From this, cut about 24 servings of the same weight and size. If you want larger pretzels, sticks or rolls, you can reduce the number and increase the weight of each portion.
4. Now shape the pretzels, sticks or rolls into 4 portions one after the other. Cover the parts that are not yet required with a cloth.
5. For the pretzels, form a strand of dough about 50 – 60 cm with both hands. To do this, first make a thick, elongated roll, which is then rolled out thinly on both sides with both hands lying flat at the same time and evenly from the center. The middle must be thicker than the two side ends.
6. Now take the two side ends and cross them below the thicker part, so that the right end is on the left and the left end on the right. Then the left end is placed back on the right and the right end back on the left side, so that a double cross is formed. Both ends are now lifted in this position and placed on the thicker pretzel edge on the side and carefully pressed down there. In this way, form all the parts you want (that fit on the sheet metal) and store them temporarily on a plastic base.
7. Preheat the oven to 160 ° circulating air. DO NOT use baking paper for the baking sheet, if available, only use permanent baking foil or simply oil it well.
8. Now, to be on the safe side, put on the disposable gloves, place the parts individually on a perforated trowel and immerse them in the cold lye for 5 seconds. Dipping by hand is a bit difficult because the dough blanks are quite soft and they can lose their shape in the process. You can also freeze them briefly beforehand, but everything was too time-consuming for me. After dipping with the trowel, tap it a little on the edge of the bowl so that the lye drips off well and then immediately place the blanks on the oiled or lined baking sheet with a gap. Cut a little lengthways into the thick, middle pretzel strand with a very sharp knife, sprinkle with hail salt and let it rest on the baking sheet until the oven has reached the required temperature. Experience has shown that 6 pretzels fit on the tray.
9. The actual baking time on the middle shelf is approx. 25 minutes. However, if you are preparing the pastries in advance, a preliminary baking time of approx. 15 – 20 minutes is sufficient. The parts should, however, be slightly browned. You can then freeze them well and, if necessary, finish baking them until they are well browned and crispy.
10. For pretzel sticks, roll out the portions oblong and somewhat oval and then roll them up again from the long side into a thicker roll. The seam must then be on the underside. They are then dipped in the same way as the pretzels, then cut diagonally 3 – 4 times and sprinkled with the salt. The further procedure is as already described for the pretzels.
11. With the rolls, knead the portions again very briefly. Then you “roll the dough round”, that is, you form a ball out of it, the edges of which meet on the underside, are slightly compressed and the top is arched, smooth and tensioned. The compressed side must then also remain the underside. They are then dipped, placed on the baking sheet, cut crosswise once on the top and sprinkled with salt.

Tip:

1. I used to use baking soda for the lye. Since I – there are simply no “great pretzels” in Berlin – but always prefer to make them myself, I did some research and came across the pretzel pearls. They are available on the Internet and you can make a really food-safe lye (like that of the baker). Either 3.5 – 4% lye is used, i.e. 35 – 40 g lye pearls per 1 liter of water. The lye prepared in this way can be used several times, i.e. not disposed of. I keep them in a well-sealable container in the refrigerator until the next “baking session”.