Pretzels

 

Most of the time I only eat pretzels when I am wanting something savoury however there was a Facebook competition for Baker's Corner that involved pretzels (wheat based ones) & chocolate. As I love chocolate and a recipe for gluten free pretzels was on my to do list I thought I may as well make something that was a delicious combination of sweet, savoury & salty.

My chocolate & pretzel combo pictured above consists of a Triple C Too biscuit base topped with peanut butter & white chocolate truffle, sprinkled with crushed salted peanuts with a pretzel pushed into the truffle topped with white & dark chocolate stripes. 

This recipe will make hard pretzels.

This recipe was designed specifically to be made with Bakers' Magic gluten free flour. The finished baked product will not be the same if you use another gluten free flour and you will need to adjust the recipe, particularly if the flour you're using contains rice flour.  

 

Ingredients

115 g Bakers' Magic Gluten free flour

35 g Maize starch

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Guar gum*

1/2 tsp Yeast

20 g Rice malt syrup (or ~15 g sugar)

15 g Oil (I use Rice bran)

150 g Warm water

 

* I have added guar gum to the recipe to make the dough more manageable.

 

Soda Bath

500 g Hot water

1 tbs Bicarb of soda

 

You will also need

Egg wash (whole egg + a little salt)

Salt to sprinkle on top

 

 

Method

Mix together the dry ingredients (maize starch, Bakers' Magic Gluten free flour, guar gum & salt) in a mixing bowl.

Activate the yeast with the rice malt syrup & warm water. Allow this mixture to start foaming before proceeding (~5 mins).

Add the oil to the yeast mix & pour over the dry ingredients. Mix until you have a uniform dough.

Line 2 trays with baking paper. Lightly oil the paper.

I wanted my pretzels to be roughly the same size and rolling them out by hand was not working for me. So I used a piping bag & a size 7 plain nozzle. It is a little hard to push the dough out but it is so much easier than rolling by hand. 

Transfer dough to a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle.

Pipe the dough the length of the baking tray. Repeat until there is no more room on the tray. Roll the lengths over - it makes it easier to move them later.

Cut the piped dough into 15 cm lengths if making pretzel shapes. Cut the piped dough into 10 cm lengths if making pretzel sticks.

Lightly oil a small work surface.

Pick up one of the lengths & set it out as a U shape. 

Take the top right hand side and move it to form a 6.

Take the top left hand side & join it to the body of the 6.

Transfer shaped pretzel to the empty baking tray. Repeat with the other lengths.

Transfer the trays to a warm place when all the shapes have been made. Let the shapes prove for 15 - 30 mins.

Turn oven on to 200 C (fan forced).

Make the soda bath in a saucepan/small frypan. Bring to the boil then turn down the heat a little so that the bath is simmering.

Place the pretzels in the soda bath for 15 secs (only put a couple in at any one time).

Drain & transfer the washed pretzels back to the baking tray. Repeat until pretzels have all been put in the bath.

Brush pretzels with egg wash & sprinkle with salt. 

Transfer trays to the oven & bake for ~10 mins.

Turn oven to 100 C and take trays out of the oven. When the oven has cooled down put the trays back into the oven to dry out the pretzels. Leave them in there ~1-2 hours - it will depend on how big the pretzels are. 

Store in an air tight container.

Simply enjoy!