Variations on a theme

 

As you may have noticed, I like having a theme for a meal. Not an extensive or elaborate one, just Greek, or Spanish, or something. It brings a modicum of interest to meal planning, and let’s face it, it’s the nearest I’m going to get to travelling anywhere anytime soon. So, when the husband ordered an Oktoberfest special offer box of beer from Munich, it seemed that it was time for a German evening. Especially as the special offer included free Oktoberfest hats (more on them later).

What should you have with German beer? Pretzels, of course. Proper bready pretzels, not the mini crisp-like sort that come in packets. The recipe comes from the Hairy Bikers Big Book of Baking. I know opinions on the Hairies are divided, but as a fellow Northerner I have a soft spot for them, and their recipes are generally pretty reliable.

Pretzels: the full recipe makes 12, I did half as six pretzels is quite enough for two people. You start by mixing half a sachet of dried yeast with a teaspoon of sugar and 150ml warm water. The recipe says leave to stand for 4 minutes – I was a bit approximate about the timing on this, but it was fine.  

Mix 175g plain flour and 100g strong/bread flour with some salt, then add 12.5g butter and rub in. This really felt like it wasn’t enough butter, but again, it seemed to work out alright in the end. Pour over the yeast mixture and mix with your hands (they are very specific about this) to form a dough. Turn this out and kneed for 5 minutes, then put the dough back in the bowl, cover and leave to rest somewhere warm (in the cupboard next to the hot water tank in  my case) for an hour.

Then you get to the really fun part. After knocking back the dough, you divide it into balls of about 80g each. Roll each piece into a 60cm long rope – I did actually use a tape measure for this (see pic below). Then twist the rope into a pretzel shape (easier typed than done, but fortunately there is a picture in the book for reference), then leave to rest in the fridge for another hour on an oiled baking tray.  

After this, make a deep cut in the thickest part of the pretzel (I wasn’t quite sure where this was, so mine were a bit random, sprinkle with sea salt, and bake at Fan 180Cfor 20-25 minutes until a deep golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Fresh from the oven

Finally, enjoy with beer. We also has charcuterie and cheese, as German beer is proper stuff and not to be countenanced lightly.

 

Beer, pretzel, silly hat. 

Lockdown fun: drinking beer in silly hats.