Right after I finished my high school exams, six years ago, I went on my first ever holiday without my parents. My best friend Steffie and I went on a city trip to London for five days where we enjoyed ourselves with lots of shopping, eating in restaurants and going to Starbucks. One of the things I never forgot were the soft pretzels we ate in the Westfield mall in London. It was the first time we ate something like that and we both loved them. When we came back to London two years later we went back to the food stall in Westfield, because we had to eat the pretzels again. They were soo good! Two weeks ago we finally got together to bake our own pretzels and with success! Today I proudly present two pretzel recipes to you: gluten-free soft pretzels ánd soft pretzels with gluten!

I have so many good memories of that holiday in London. It was like heaven to us. A big city with beautiful sights to visit, loads of shops that were totally new to us, four-floor bookstores where we could walk around for hours (yep that’s us) and a Starbucks on every corner.

It is very hard to imagine right now that a Starbucks is something special. But in 2010, we had about one Starbucks in the entire Netherlands and for us it was something very cool that we only saw in the movies. I think we visited a Starbucks at least once every day during our holiday and we totally loved it. The cakes, the special flavors of the drinks and just the fact that we could drink coffee from a takeaway cup. Large shopping malls are also something that doesn’t exist in the Netherlands, even now we hardly have any of them, mainly because our country doesn’t want people to move away from the shops in the city centers towards large malls outside of the city. For us, big shopping malls like Westfield were like Disneyland and we spent entire days in there. The pretzels were sold in the middle of the mall and you could smell them from far away. There were always employees around sampling pieces of pretzels to customers and we passed by them as often as possible, just to get to eat another piece of pretzel. The softness of the dough with the sticky sugar-cinnamon layer was just perfect.

Since that day I have been telling Steffie that we should try to make the pretzels ourselves. I thought it would be quite tricky to make the pretzels and therefore, I wanted to make them together with Steffie, my baking partner in crime. We have been baking together since we became friends, over 10 years ago and together we are a great team. She is the first person I go to when I have a baking crisis, she always gives me advise on how to make things and she bakes the most delicious things herself. Six years after London we finally made our pretzels. We spend the entire afternoon in the kitchen, but that was totally worth it because after a few hours we had delicious gluten-full (new word) and gluten-free soft pretzels! Sweet ones with a sugar-cinnamon topping and savory ones with sea salt.

Believe me, they take a bit of time to make, but it is so worth it! For me, it was the first time that I successfully baked something bread-like that was gluten-free. My former attempts at gluten-free baking never really turned out like I wanted them to turn out. Admitted, gluten-free bread bakes will always look and taste different from gluten-full bakes. You have to let go of your expectations about bread bakes when you do gluten-free baking because it won’t be the same as baking with gluten. But I really enjoyed eating those gluten-free soft pretzels, so it is absolutely worth it to make them.

I will share both recipes with you today, because if you don’t have to eat gluten-free it is easier and cheaper to make the version with gluten 😉

What do you need for the gluten-free soft pretzels (for 10 pretzels)

This recipe is based on a recipe by King Arthur Flour

For the dough

• 3 ½ cups gluten-free flour (I used gluten-free flour by Schär, an Italian brand)
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 large egg (at room temperature)
• 2 tablespoons soft butter

For the water bath and topping

• 3 ½ liters water
• ¼ cup baking soda
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• Melted butter
• Sea salt
• Cinnamon and sugar

How to prepare the gluten-free soft pretzels

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius or 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a bowl stir together the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, baking powder and xanthan gum. Add the water, egg and butter and knead everything into a firm dough using a mixer. This takes about 4 minutes. If the dough is too dry you can add a few tablespoons of water.
3. Grease a bowl, put the dough in a bowl and cover it. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until almost doubled, about 45 to 90 minutes.
4. Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough into 10 pieces and roll each piece into a long rope. Fold into a pretzel shape.

5. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Bring the water for the water bath to boil. Stir in the sugar and the baking soda.
6. Drop the pretzels into the water one at a time and boil them for about 5 seconds. They will sink and then float to the surface.
7. Put the pretzels on the baking sheet. Brush the pretzels with the melted butter and top them with either a mixture of sugar and cinnamon or with sea salt. We chose to make 6 sweet and 4 savoury pretzels.
8. Bake the gluten-free soft pretzels for 18-20 minutes. Watch them closely, some ovens may bake faster than others, this might require you to bake the pretzels a bit shorter or longer. If the pretzels get too dark too quickly you can cover them with a bit of aluminium foil or turn down the temperature a bit.
9. You can store the pretzels up to 4 days into an airtight box. They will taste best if you will put them in the oven for a few minutes before eating them. If you want to keep them longer you can freeze them.

What do you need for the soft pretzels with gluten (for 10 pretzels)

This recipe is based on a recipe by A Beautiful Mess

For the dough

• 1 ½ cup warm water
• 1 1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup white bread flour
• 3 cups all-purpose flour

For the water bath and topping

• 3-4 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• Sea salt
• Cinnamon and sugar

How to prepare

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius or 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Put the 1 ½ cups warm water in a bowl and dissolve the yeast in it. Stir the sugar and salt into the water.
3. Use a mixer (or if you want a good workout: your hands) to combine the bread flour, all-purpose flour, salt and the yeast mixture. Knead until the dough is elastic, about 4-6 minutes.
4. Grease a bowl, put the dough in and cover the bowl. Leave to rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
5. Cut the dough into 10 pieces and roll each piece out into a long rope. Fold it into a pretzel shape.
6. Layer a baking sheet with baking parchment. Put the cup warm water and the tablespoon of baking soda in a shallow bowl and dip in the pretzels one by one. Put them on the baking sheet.
7. Cover the pretzels and allow them to rise for another 45 minutes to an hour.
8. Melt the butter and brush it onto the pretzels. Top the pretzels with salt or a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. We choose to make 6 sweet and 4 savory pretzels.

9. Bake the pretzels for 10-12 minutes.
10. You can store the pretzels up to 4 days into an airtight box. If you want to keep them longer you can freeze them.

Enjoy!

Will you let me know if you decide to make either the gluten-free soft pretzels or the pretzels with gluten? I would love it if you would share your creations with me using the hashtag #karlijnskitchen on Instagram or by tagging me at @karlijnskitchen

Print Print