culinary school in my kitchen: Alsace and Lorraine: Pretzels

While I was making my beer I was dreaming of the pretzels I had eaten in Europe along side a large glass of frosty beer and I started to think. I needed to make pretzels.
Pretzels can be found in traditional bakeries in Alsace decided it was very fitting and set out on my venture to eat a warm pretzel and drink some Biere d'Alsace...

I'm sure you all have experienced the desire to make bread but when looking at the recipe get discouraged due to the time that bread consumes. Well I had a similar problem. My beloved pretzels were supposed to take 8 HOURS! But I did not get detoured; this was not going to stop me!!! Nor was it going to mess with the quality of my pretzel, but I really did not have a choice it was already 7pm when I started baking.

I started by letting my yeast, water, maple syrup, salt and olive oil sit until the yeast was activated. (A process that, if I had followed the recipe, was supposed to take upwards of 3 hours of yeast activating in cold water... easy to bi-pass)

Then I added 2 cups of flour and mixed vigorously with my spatula for about 3-4 minutes.

Then on the counter I added 1 more cup of flour while kneading the dough.

I let the dough rise until it had doubled in size (NOW for my biggest time saver, I was supposed to punch down the dough, coat in oil and put it in the fridge wrapped in plastic for 2-4 hours, but I just did not do it... hmmm... time saver? I think so)

Then I started rolling out my pretzels and twisting them up

I let them rise a little longer until I thought they were a nice size (ok, maybe I have a lot of bread baking experience but it really should not be daunting to any one!!!)

Finally I mixed up a little hazelnut milk and olive oil and brushed it on the pretzels adding all kinds of toppings like cheese, salt, caraway seeds and garlic powder.