Happy National Pretzel Day!!!! 🥨❤️🥨 If you are new to my blog, welcome! If you are not, then you know that my sewing skills are far better than my baking skills. So, when it comes to cooking or baking, I turn to my friends Sophie, Gerhild & Anja for advice.  

Here are 4 fabulous pretzel recipes for you (and me) to try!

From Sophie of Dirndl Kitchen

PRETZANELLA: A GERMAN PRETZEL SALAD

I put all my creative juices to work to create today’s colorful Pretzanella recipe. A Pretzanella is a fun twist on the Italian Panzanella salad, which features lots of fresh veggies and soft baked pretzel bread (or Brezel bread) to soak up that yummy vinaigrette. I braided my pretzel bread with Maille Old Style mustard and grated gouda cheese before letting it take a quick bath in a lye solution and sprinkling it with a variety of seeds. Incorporating Maille Old Style mustard, which is a whole grain mustard, creates pockets of flavor explosions that truly add another layer of sophistication to this rather simple dish. I love using Maille mustard for its authentic French flavor. For the pretzel bread (makes 2 loaves):

• 4 c (500 g) all-purpose flour
• 1 package (7 g) dry yeast
• 2.5 Tbsp (15 g) brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp (30 g) butter
• 2 tsp (10 g) salt
• 1.7 oz (50 ml/g) warm water
• 7.6 oz (225 ml/g) ice cold water
• About 3 oz (85 g) Maille Old Style mustard
• About 6 oz (170g g) grated Gouda cheese
• Sprinkle with: pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, pretzel salt

For lye solution (best to use a kitchen scale to measure):

• 1000 ml (1000 g or 33.8 oz) water
• 40 g (1.41 oz) lye 

CLICK HERE for the full recipe  

PUDDING BREZEL: A SWEET PRETZEL RECIPE

Ever made something that was so good that in order to keep yourself from eating more than two servings, you had to give it away? Well that’s what these are! After two of these sweet (but not too sweet!), pudding-filled pretzel pastries, I took the rest to client meetings, so I wouldn’t put on more baby weight than I have to! 😉 Everyone loved them, and I must say they are just as good as the pudding pretzels from my favorite German bakeries, if not better! I also used all organic ingredients, so they’re definitely better quality than what you would buy at your standard German bakery. Pudding Pretzel Dough:

• 4 c (500 g) all-purpose flour
• 1 package active dry yeast (7 g)
• 7 oz (200 ml) milk
• 3.5 Tbsp (50 g) butter
• 1/4 + 2 Tbsp (75 g) granulated sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 egg

CLICK Here for the full recipe

From Oma Gerhild of Just like Oma

How to make Pretzels, German-style

This method of how to make pretzels, aka Brezel, is among the easiest I've found. They are crispy on the outside, yet soft on the inside. Make them either with just white flour, or do as I do, and mix a bit of whole wheat in. Having made this for the first time, and altering the recipe to make it easy, I have to admit, I'm hooked! Ingredients:

• ½ cup lukewarm water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• ¾ cup milk, lukewarm
• 4 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2½ cups all-purpose flour
• 4 Tbsp baking soda
• coarse salt to sprinkle

CLICK HERE for the full recipe  

From Anja of Our Gabled Home

HOW TO MAKE GERMAN PRETZELS

>

When I was growing up in Germany, I always loved them but certainly took them for granted. As kids in Stuttgart, we would walk by these little “huts” or stands that solely sold pretzels. You could also get them cut horizontally and spread with butter (FACT: Germans never eat their pretzels with mustard!). Since having moved to the US, I have missed pretzels. Probably because they’re not so readily available. At first, I was intimidated by using lye but with a few safety precautions, I soon found that the distinct pretzel flavor and color was worth the extra effort. Here are the ingredients you need to make German pretzels:

• 3.5 cups or 500 g of flour (wheat, spelt, or a bit of whole wheat)
• 1 1/6 cup or 300 g lukewarm milk
• 2 tsp dry yeast
• 2 tsp or 10 g of salt
• 3 TBSP or 40 g of soft butter
• 1 TBSP malted barley flour or sugar
• food grade lye or baking soda
• coarse pretzel salt

CLICK HERE for the full recipe

So there you have it... my top finds for the must try authentic German pretzel recipes! Let me know what you think. Do you have your own recipe that you use? Do you use lye? Do you prefer mustard, cheese or just butter on your pretzel?

Looking to get some pretzel gear to celebrate National Pretzel Day?