A few weeks ago, I made pretzels for the first time using the dough cycle of my bread maker (a Breville). They tasted really good. I decided to try them again using the lye method, and wow! Big difference in appearance. The baking soda kind looks anemic in comparison.
The lye wasn’t super difficult. The worst part was that when I removed the safety seal on my bottle, some of the crystals went flying
In case anyone is curious, the recipe is “Soft Giant Pretzels” from the Taste of Home website. For the lye bath, I used 1L of cold water and 2T of lye. Each pretzel got a 30-sec dip.
by eeksie-peeksie
13 Comments
Spectacular. That you for showing the comparison
Obviously I need to do some research on this, but because I’m too lazy to google….what specific kind of lye is needed? These look phenomenal and I was thinking about making mustard next week (which will require soft pretzels) and the lye bath pretzels look insanely better than any I’ve made at home
So: the baking soda is a lie?
Never tried actual pretzels, but I’ve made these pretzel rolls a few times using baking soda:
https://leitesculinaria.com/106433/recipes-pretzel-rolls.html
And they turned out just like the picture. Perfectly colored.
I use baking soda and mine do not look like those on the left. Maybe not as dark as the right but far better than the left.
Off to get lye.
[This](https://imgur.com/a/Hma50x9) are mine with baking soda. Did you only put your baking soda one for 2 min in the oven?
Strange. When I use Baking soda, it’s alot browner.
I just won’t ever make pretzels enough to buy the lye. It only comes in huge quantities and will just sit there.
We used lye is baking school. The instructor was the only one allowed to touch the bottle of lye and all students had to wear full face and hand protection, as well as a rubber apron while dipping. When baking we were told the vent had to remain open because the fumes would be very bad for us. They were incredible to eat with Gulden’s mustard right out of the oven!
There are several stories about how pretzels came to be but I have always wondered how a lye bath became part of the process.
I like the look of the lye pretzels but what about the flavor? Do they taste much different?
Go figure pH has a real effect on outcomes. Sometimes ersatz ingredients are only ersatz ingredients
Have you tried with “washing soda”?