Let me tell you about the time I tried to bake pretzel rolls using the recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Their recipes are generally excellent. They taste great, instructions make sense, and they are clearly well tested. I, of course, can never do anything simple when it could be complicated.
The Plan: Make Bigger Rolls
Now, generally speaking, the recipe for pretzels is pretty similar to the recipe for pizza crust. The ingredients and methodology are similar, up until the point where you start forming them into their final shape. With pizza crust, I pretty much adapt the recipe on the fly by changing one key starting factor: the amount of water. ¾ cup of water = 1 pizza crust. 1-½ cup of water = 2 pizza crusts. I figured pretzel rolls would be similar. Increase the amount of water by 20 percent, adjust other ingredients accordingly, and I would be able to transform our pretzel rolls from dinner-sized to sandwich-sized, which was the primary objective. Pretzel sandwich rolls.
Sally’s recipe yields 12 rolls. I could have just made 10 rolls and it would have probably worked out perfectly. But have you ever tried negotiating “who gets the last [fill in the blank]” in a family of four when the package only has 10? It doesn’t work. [Actually, truth be told, it does usually work. It usually “works” because Mom gets 1 and everybody else gets 3. Not this time! I want my fair share!]
So, I started our little adventure. Bumped up the amount of water, and got things rolling. Midway through mixing, I realized I was out of all-purpose flour. Not to worry. There’s always more flour. But lo and behold, I was out of most of my other types of flour. No bread flour. No whole wheat. All I had was gluten free, self-rising, and cake flour. [Yes, I do normally have 6 types of flour on hand. Stop judging me.] Hmm….eenie, meenie, miney, moe. You are not it. Cake flour it is. I had enough of the all-purpose flour for the base recipe, but obviously, I needed extra because of the extra water. I started spooning in the cake flour like a rebel pastry chef. I slowly kneaded in additional cake flour until the dough stopped clinging to everything like a needy toddler.
Back to the regularly scheduled program, except at this point, I was kind of losing track of the plot. There are a lot of steps for pretzel rolls. First proof. Cutting and shaping. Second proof. Baking soda bath. I’m a pretty haphazard cook, but I do have a memory for past failures, so I remembered that transferring the finished rolls to the baking soda bath can be really tricky. I tried a tip from making crullers - I formed the rolls and left them to proof on squares of waxed paper [was it supposed to be parchment paper? No idea. Waxed paper seemed to work]. Then, when it was time to put them in the baking soda bath, in they went, papers and all. After a moment in the boiling water, the paper released from the roll and I was able to pull it out with tongs. Perfect. Without the papers, I always end up with misshapen rolls from where my fingers gouged them off the cutting board.
As an aside, did you know that crullers are basically just cream puff batter piped in a circle and deep fried? And the exact same dough makes churros if you pipe them in a straight line and deep fry them? That’s my PSA for the day. Learn to make cream puffs, then show off your expertise with crullers and churros, too.
The last step after the baking soda bath is brushing with melted butter. But nope, totally forgot that step. I did manage to remember the salt, but that was it. A sprinkle of crusty pretzel salt and into the oven.
In the end, the rolls were perfect. Not as buttery, maybe, but a nice size for barbecue chicken sandwiches, and there were enough leftovers to go around!
🥨 Final Thoughts
Would I do it again? Absolutely. Would I recommend it? Only if you enjoy baking with a dash of chaos and a pinch of improvisation. The original recipe is fantastic and definitely worth a try. I just like to mix things up a bit. Next time: cheddar.
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