Roasted Garlic Bread Pretzel Sticks

So there is a restaurant up here that gives you 2 free cookies every Wednesday with your meal.  While I’m not a fan of their cookies I love their Salted Pretzel Sticks appetizers.  Now they, along with several other restaurants in the area buy them frozen from a mass producer. You should all know me by now and know that stuff like that doesn’t set well with me. I like home made stuff.  Breads, even at a chain restaurant level, should be made homemade.  It’s not that hard and it just gives so much more personalization to the establishment.  When I first had these years ago I set out to make my own.  It took a while to get it right – the taste and texture but I nailed it eventually.  Then later on, when I discovered roasted garlic, these came ‘alive’ for me!  The flavor went from awesome to FANFRIGGENTASTIC!

I literally ate these one night for dinner.  Nothing else.  Well okay I had a container of queso sauce but that’s it.  I didn’t care and I’m not apologizing!

Now traditional pretzel rolls are dark brown in color.  The true way to only achieve that is to use Food-Grade Lye.  Lye, also known as Sodium Hydroxide or “Caustic Soda” is a very strong base, with a pH in the 13-14 range.  That’s dangerous!  You can permanently blind yourself if you accidentally splash lye in your eye!  You can also give yourself a severe burn or cause tremendous damage to your skin. Yeah um no thanks, tis not for me.  I’m not one to mess with chemicals.  I was that person in Chemistry class that wanted to see how I could make stuff smoke, set fire or make sparks.  Yeah… not smart *wink*  LOL

However that’s not to say you can’t get a dark brown color with a baking soda bath and or a diastatic malt powder bath.  These I just couldn’t hold off any longer – my stomach won over coloring.

This dish is perfect with a warm beer cheese sauce, queso and an ice cold beer. These are meant as appetizers or snacks – not as dinner but hey if you want it for dinner then go for it!

I won’t judge you… well I will if you won’t share!

So now who’s ready to get their yum on?

Roasted Garlic Bread Pretzel Sticks

• Author: The Kitchen Whisperer

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Ingredients

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 1/2 cups AP flour
• 2 1/2 cups Bread Flour
• 1/4 cup Baker’s Special Dry Milk
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2–3 Tbl Roasted Garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1 Xl egg, room temperature
• 3/4 tsp table salt
• 3 Tbl unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook add the following in order – water, all purpose flour, bread flour, dry milk, garlic powder, oregano, roasted garlic, yeast and egg.
2. Mix on low until just combined ~5 minutes using a spatula to scrape down.
3. Add in the salt and turn the mixer to medium and mix for 7-8 minutes until the dough starts to become uniform and smooth.
4. Add in the butter and mix until it comes back together. The dough will appear to ‘break’ but it will come back together. ~4 minutes. You want the dough to be smooth and slightly sticky.
5. Lightly butter a bowl and place the dough in there.
6. Cover and allow to double in size, ~60-90 minutes.
7. Gently deflate the dough and transfer to a lightly greased work surface (just spray a large piece of parchment paper with cooking spray.
8. Divide the dough into 10-12 even pieces.
9. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.
10. Roll out each piece of dough into a 20” rope and then cut in to 4 equal sticks
11. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 15-20 minutes.
12. Preheat the oven to 450F with the rack in the middle.
13. While the sticks are resting, place the 8 cups of water in a large pot and bring to a hard boil.
14. Add in the salt.
15. Uncover the dough and place the tray next to the pot.
16. Working fast, dump in the baking soda (it’ll bubble up so make sure you have a BIG POT!).
17. Carefully place each pretzel stick into the boiling water and boil for 30 seconds.
18. Using a slotted spoon, remove each ball, drain and place on the sprayed parchment paper.
19. Repeat until all the balls have been boiled.
20. Using a serrated knife, make deep slits (1/2” deep) on the top of each bun.
21. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle coarse salt on top (about 1/4-1/2 tsp each).
22. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they are a deep dark brown.
23. Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.
24. Store in a paper bag – you don’t want these in an air tight container otherwise they will get soggy.

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