Yet another Brezen recipe

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Kaiser

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Some time ago I was looking for German Brezen recipes and came across this document: http://www.backmittel.de/BBZ/pdf/Herstellung_Laugengebaeck.pdf

This is a German manual intended for small bakeries on how to make all sorts of laugengebaeck. Laugengebaeck is the German word for baking goods that have been treated with lye before baking. I'm a big fan of Laugenbroetchen (lye-roll or brezel-roll). After reading this document I learned that there are 3 styles of brezels in Germany that have a slightly different recipe. I tried the recipe for the Bavarian style dough and was amazed how close I came to what I was used to and loved so much in Germany. I had baked rolls and bread before, which helped.

Here is the recipe (in metric of course :) ):

500g Bread flour
20g DME (yes dried malt extract)
10g margarine or oil
11g salt
15g fresh yeast or 1 tsp instant yeast (I use the latter)
245g warm water

This recipe has been scaled down from the 10,000 kg version given on page 6. The original recipe called for Ulmer Goldmalz Granulat, which is basically baking grade malt extract that is used to enhance the rise and the flavor of the dough. I substituted with DME and currently this is actually the only use for the DME that I have left.

Prepare the dough by mixing the ingredients well and kneed the dough for about 10 min. Then let it rise. You can also put it in the fridge overnight wich will actually improve the final product. Form the brezels or rolls. I like to make an assortment of brezels, knots (a simple overhand knot) and rolls. Let it rise again. The long strings of dough are best made when the dough has not risen to much and you may have to let them rest covered for a few minutes to relax the gluten before you can stretch them further. Keep practicing.

Though the original recipe called for lye, I used a 3% (by weight) solution of baking soda. Simply add 30g baking soda to 1 L water. You will get the same sheen and taste as you get with lye if you boil the brezen in the baking soda solution for about 30s before baking. Place them on parchement paper on a baking sheet and sprinkle with some coarse salt . When making rolls, cut the top with a sharp knife.

Bake in a 350 - 400 *F oven (I don't remember exactly what temp I used) until they look done.

2249-Brezen.jpg

(the wite balance may be off for this picture)

Enjoy.
 
Kaiser, that document is awesome! However, my German is lousy and it is difficult for me to get much more than the recipes out of it. Have you found any English texts on Brezen?

Thanks for the help!
 
Boerderij Kabouter said:
Have you found any English texts on Brezen?

Haven't searched ;)

To me that can't be much that is better than a document that explains how to make Prezels to a commercial baker.

Kai
 
I am currently in the process of trying your pretzels, thus I can't provide any feedback on the results yet, but I am very hopeful... Being that we are German immigrants, the baked goods are definitely a category of food we miss.

Two quick corrections to the original post. The "Herstellung von Laugengebaecken" (Production of Lye Baked Goods) is now at a new URL:

http://www.meistermarken-ulmerspatz.de/downloads/bbz/Herstellung_Laugengebaeck.pdf

I was curious about the amount of dry yeast you use. I converted 15g of cake yeast to be 2 tsp of dry yeast. (2 1/2 tsp dry yeast = 0.6 oz (17g) of cake yeast.) Your recipe uses 1 tsp. Has that been sufficient for you?

Again, I'm looking forward to the results. Thank you for posting the link to the pdf document. That's a great starter point.
 
Thanks for the new link. That document is a really good one.

1 tsp of yeast has been sufficient for me. Laugengeback doesn't rise much anyway.

I just bought some lye and next time I make them I'll go with a true lye bath instead of the hot baking soda option.

Kai
 
I made these tonight. There were some small differences from the recipe I had posted and I wanted to try this out... particularly the DME (vs. brown sugar). I made a few other changes... I cut out the salt (for the dough mixture) and instead of using oil I used salted butter. I also used a 3% lye solution. The outside of the pretzels have a distinct yet fairly thin crust and the inside is very soft and chewy. They are wonderful.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea...

SANY0311.jpg
 
I made these the other day, following the recipe pretty closely. They turned out wonderfully - just like the ones I had in Germany! All I was missing was a nice hefe and some weisswurst!
 
In case you haven't seen it yet, I added a how-to for Brezels on my wiki: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Brezels_and_other_Laugengeb%C3%A4ck

Kai

Thanks...

I've used Alton Brown's recipe, along with the boiling baking soda trick, since I don't have a readily-available source of lye. It works well enough for me, but if there is a definite benefit (other than being historically correct) to using lye, I'll do it. I'm not afraid of chemicals; I have handled lots of nasty stuff in the past (like HF and fuming Nitric), and know to respect it.

Have you done an experiment pitting the lye vs. baking soda on the same dough batch?
 
I haven't done a side-by-side but the lye gives the prezels a nicer sheen and they possibly taste more authentic as well. I got my lye from an on-line store.

Kai
 
Thanks TONS for maintaining the braukaiser page! I should donate one of these days.

I made the Brezels recipe. They're baking as I type! Can't wait to try them, maybe even with a homebrew! Also brewed your Helles recipe last weekend with a friend.
Do you know how long you can make ahead the brezels before baking? Can you make them and then freeze them (including all steps - lye bath, salt, slit) for later baking? I wish I had thought of this BEFORE I started typing and I couldve pulled one out. I suppose you could freeze after baking and reheat later. Its not a quickie recipe when lye is involved, but it is otherwise a pretty fast thing to make, even maybe on a weeknight.
Thanks again! I'll post a pic when they're done.

TD
 
Thanks TONS for maintaining the braukaiser page! I should donate one of these days.

I made the Brezels recipe. They're baking as I type! Can't wait to try them, maybe even with a homebrew! Also brewed your Helles recipe last weekend with a friend.
Do you know how long you can make ahead the brezels before baking? Can you make them and then freeze them (including all steps - lye bath, salt, slit) for later baking? I wish I had thought of this BEFORE I started typing and I couldve pulled one out. I suppose you could freeze after baking and reheat later. Its not a quickie recipe when lye is involved, but it is otherwise a pretty fast thing to make, even maybe on a weeknight.
Thanks again! I'll post a pic when they're done.

TD

I freeze mine when I make Pretzels with no problem. Throw them in a toaster oven. Comes out great..
 
After baking. let them cool first. I put them in a big zip lock bag, right in the freezer. Take them out as needed.

Good to know. I only got 10 pretzels out of the recipe. Was thinking for the time, might be nice to get more. Have you tried doubling the recipe?

Also, the 20-30 minute rest time after the pretzel has been formed. I was wondering if the same is used if you are making other shapes, such as rolls or something else. I would think yes, and I would also think that even for the pretzels, if you wanted a fuller less dense pretzel to increase the rise time.

About the lye. how dangerous really is the water bath 3-4% lye? I mean heck, we are going to be eating the stuff huh? are goggles necessary once the solution has been made and all the concentrated lye has been put away? I still wear them until the bath is disposed of.

The lye also makes the pretzels very sticky or tacky. I was thinking about baking on a baking stone or wood fired oven, but the stickiness of the dough I think would prevent doing so. I used the parchment paper. I suppose that you could cut individual squares per pretzel to prevent the sticking, but I don't know the burning point of parchment so I was reluctant to put directly on the baking stones.

just curious.

Thanks!

TD
 
Good to know. I only got 10 pretzels out of the recipe. Was thinking for the time, might be nice to get more. Have you tried doubling the recipe?

Also, the 20-30 minute rest time after the pretzel has been formed. I was wondering if the same is used if you are making other shapes, such as rolls or something else. I would think yes, and I would also think that even for the pretzels, if you wanted a fuller less dense pretzel to increase the rise time.

About the lye. how dangerous really is the water bath 3-4% lye? I mean heck, we are going to be eating the stuff huh? are goggles necessary once the solution has been made and all the concentrated lye has been put away? I still wear them until the bath is disposed of.

The lye also makes the pretzels very sticky or tacky. I was thinking about baking on a baking stone or wood fired oven, but the stickiness of the dough I think would prevent doing so. I used the parchment paper. I suppose that you could cut individual squares per pretzel to prevent the sticking, but I don't know the burning point of parchment so I was reluctant to put directly on the baking stones.

just curious.

Thanks!

TD

I haven't done Kai's recipe. There's another one here I have used. You should have no problem doubling the recipe, I done it with no problem. I have never used lye, I use the baking soda method. People say it's not as good as lye, but I wouldn't know. Be careful with lye. It's no joke. Also, I don't use parchment paper, I spray with Pam.
 
Some time ago I was looking for German Brezen recipes and came across this document: http://www.backmittel.de/BBZ/pdf/Herstellung_Laugengebaeck.pdf

This is a German manual intended for small bakeries on how to make all sorts of laugengebaeck. Laugengebaeck is the German word for baking goods that have been treated with lye before baking. I'm a big fan of Laugenbroetchen (lye-roll or brezel-roll). After reading this document I learned that there are 3 styles of brezels in Germany that have a slightly different recipe. I tried the recipe for the Bavarian style dough and was amazed how close I came to what I was used to and loved so much in Germany. I had baked rolls and bread before, which helped.

Here is the recipe (in metric of course :) ):

500g Bread flour
20g DME (yes dried malt extract)
10g margarine or oil
11g salt
15g fresh yeast or 1 tsp instant yeast (I use the latter)
245g warm water

Hi - sorry for this, but this is not a good receipe for Southern-German brezel. I was born at Swabian Alb nearby Stuttgart where lye dough (Laugenteig) for original pretzels developed by a traditional working baker. His secret was his food-grade lye (with NaOH) and his special yeast culture. It was not comparably with industrial yeast cultures nowadays. But this is 50 years ago.
DME and warm water are wrong - the pretzels will be cloggy (right term?)
Here's my recipe, which is close to the original.

So here is my recommendation for an original Swabian pretzel (20 pieces):
1000 g wheat flour Type 550 (normal flour for white bread)
550 ml icecold water
80 g lard
42 g fresh yeast
20 g salt
15 g liquid back malt (enzyminactive)

Knead all ingredients in the food processor for 8-10 minutes. Remove the dough from the machine and let it rest for 5-10 minutes.

Then weigh the pieces of dough at approx. 80 g each. Fold the dough together and roll it into 10 cm long rolls (similar to a cigar).

Lay next to each other and cover again with foil. Cover until the dough has relaxed. Now take a piece of dough and roll it from the middle so that a belly remains in the middle and the ends become thinner and thinner. The dough strand should be approx. 40-50 cm long.

Place the dough strand on the work surface with a reversed U. Cross the ends twice, beat them upwards and press them a little to the side of the pretzel. Then carefully pull the pretzel apart a little and correct its shape. Place the pretzels on a baking tray lined with baking foil and leave to rise at room temperature for 30-45 minutes.

Then put the pretzels together with the tray in the freezer for 15-25 minutes, so that they can bake and you can put them better in the lye.

Now make a caustic soda solution: In a large steel bowl first pour one litre of cold water, then carefully add 40 g of caustic beads and stir.

Remove the dough pieces from the freezer and place them face down in the lye. Disposable gloves are highly recommended, if possible eye protection (safety glasses, alternatively glasses or sunglasses) if a drop should splash!!!

Let the pretzel swim briefly and then place it back on the baking tray lined with the foil using a skimmer.

Cut the belly with a sharp serrated knife and sprinkle with hail salt. In the meantime, heat up the oven to 250° and bake the pretzels brown in about 15 minutes on the middle stove rail.

Of course, you can reduce the amount of yeast considerably by using a pre-dough and a long cold run of the dough overnight in the refrigerator.
 
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