Everything Pretzel Knots

The Origin of Pretzel Knots

Pretzels have religious origins dating back to the early 7th century. Easily baked with simple ingredients of flour, water, yeast, and salt, they were a go-to to eat during the strict season of Lent when many other ingredients were prohibited. The pretzel shape came from Monks who would give the treats to children who prayed with the pretzel shape resembling the way Christians folded their arms when praying. By the 17th century, the interlocked and rounded shape of the pretzel came to be a meaning of love. Royal, Swiss couples incorporated pretzels on their wedding day to seal their bond of holy matrimony.

How did they make their way to America? By German immigrants in the 1700’s of course! One German, by the name of Julius Stergis, opened the first commercial pretzel bakery in the 1800’s and invented the hard pretzel so it could be shipped out to further away places and have a longer shelf life. The traditional lye covered pretzels? Invented by mistake by a Munich baker who meant to coat the pretzels with a sugar glaze and accidentally dipped into a lye solution meant for cleaning. One day I will that him for discovering a delicious pretzel baking method!

Read more about it here and here!

How to Make Lye Dipped Pretzel Knots:

What are everything pretzel knots made of?

This soft pretzel knot recipe is made with few ingredients, but the stars of this bake show are the everything bagel seasoning and the lye. Everything bagel seasoning has all the good stuff found on everything bagels including black and white sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried onion and garlic flakes, and flakey sea salt. Lye is what gives soft pretzel knots their taste, color, and mouthfeel. Yes, it’s dangerous to work with if you’re not careful, and yes it is safe and extremely delicious to eat.

Make the Pretzel Dough:

This dough is slightly enriched dough which means it contains fat (butter). However, what’s really important here is mixing the yeast with warm water. Since active dry yeast needs to be activated with warmth to work, it needs to be mixed with the warm water first to allow for proofing. It also can’t be too hot or else you will kill the yeast which occurs at 120*F. Use a mixer to make kneading the dough much easier than hand kneading, and mix until it passes the windowpane test. The windowpane test demonstrates the gluten development in dough (explained more below).

Protip: This dough has a low hydration level which means it gets pretty stiff and tough and can be a pain on my kitchen mixer. I will move my mixer to the floor so it doesn’t scooch itself off my table. I’ll also mix on low for longer because the stiff dough can cause my 6qt mixer to bounce out.

The science of kneading:

Flour is composed of starch and protein and the proteins are called glutenin and gliadin which are long and tangled. Together, glutenin and gliadin form gluten. Kneading rubs these “subproteins” together to stretch them out, line them up, and cross-link themselves to create a net that helps retain gasses during the proofing stage. Kneading also incorporates oxygen in the dough which helps yeast breath and produce carbon dioxide. The windowpane test proves if you have developed enough gluten strands for proper structure to help retain those gasses for the final rise. 

Test for the windowpane by taking a small portion of dough and roll into a ball. Stretch it out gently starting in the middle. Stretch it into a square and until the center is a thin film. If your dough easily stretches thinly without tearing, then the dough is strong enough and enough gas can be retained in the network of gluten strands. If it rips easily, then you need to develop more gluten strands by more kneading/mixing. You should also see the network of gluten strands. It’s called the windowpane test because light should be able to pass through like through a window.

Allow to Proof and Portion:

After all that work of mixing and providing a GREAT net of gluten strands, the dough needs a break. During that break the yeast activates, eats the carbohydrates, and releases carbon dioxide which leads to rising. That net you just weaved kneading is now doing its job. The amount of time it takes to proof will depend on your environment. The warmer it is, the faster it will proof; the colder, the longer. See my tips for speeding up proofing times if your environment is not ideal. After your dough has proofed to 3 times its size, you can easily portion out into 40g balls.

Roll Into Balls and Allow to Rest:

Roll those portions into balls by cupping your hand and using a push and pull action in a circular motion. DO NOT flour your work surface because you want a little traction to help with the shaping. Sometimes I will spritz some water to create a tackier work surface. After this, it needs a little more resting time before shaping.

How to Make A Pretzel Knot:

You can shape these however you want. I like these little knots but you can make mini pretzels, pretzel logs, etc. For knots, it is a simple matter of rolling to about 8 inches long, wrapping it around two fingers and pulling one end through the loop (more directional tips below). After all have been shaped, it will go through a final proofing. If you find during shaping that your pretzel dough portion doesn’t want to go anywhere, give it an extra rest! The more gluten is worked, the more elastic it becomes so sometimes it just needs to chill out.

Make the Lye Solution and Dip:

Please read my tips for a perfectly safe experience using lye. If you’d rather play it safe, then use the baking soda substitute, though the results are not as great. Before dipping in lye, make sure you use a well sprayed piece of parchment paper, and you have all tools necessary for dipping. They do need to sit in the bath for about 30-60 seconds before you shake off the excess and transfer to the sheet pan. 

Lye is a very strong Alkali and caustic soda(on the higher side of the pH scale), and it allows for better Maillard browning on the outside of the pretzel; meaning, it makes it browner and shinier. Lye also contributes to the flavor with that traditional, metallic taste and mouthfeel as well. But why can you eat it if it’s poisonous? When baking, lye reacts with the starch in the dough as well as the carbon dioxide and moisture in the oven. When baked at a high temperature, this reaction creates a non-toxic, edible carbonate.

Bake and Finish the Everything Pretzel Knots Recipe:

Bake with a pan of water in the oven to add moisture to the oven which helps make the lye more edible. You coat with butter and the seasoning close to the end of the baking and then bake for a couple minutes more to seal the deal. These are definitely a lot better warm and even better if dipped in beer cheese.