Pretzels!
I have a feeling that this blog will turn into the-adventures-of-cooking-in-a-meagerly-stocked-apartment-on-a-student-budget-with-no-oven.
It is not a secret that I love food. When I was asked what I wanted to do for my 23rd birthday this year I could not think of anything better than eating very many kinds of stinky cheeses, but I imagined no one else wanted to do that with me, so we went to karaoke. So aren’t I lucky that I get to live in Tokyo, where there are more five star restaurants than Paris?
Kind of.
The thing is, I’m on a student budget. The second thing is I don’t have an oven. This wouldn’t be a problem if most grocery stores in Japan sold something resembling normal bread. They do not. My local supa sells 6 slices of large square shaped dry cake they call bread for 500 yen. This is not a good value.
So I have been longing to make my own bread. Then it hit me! Pretzels are just bread that gets half of the cooking done by boiling them! Tah da, I have bread.
Delicious delicious salty bread.
I followed this recipe from Dinner with Julie.
Pretzel Rolls
2 tsp. active dry yeast
3/4 cup lukewarm water
3/4 cup lukewarm milk
2 Tbsp. olive oil
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
plus extra salt for the topBoiling solution:
2 L water
1 Tbsp. salt
4 Tbsp. baking soda ( added a lot more than this because I wasn’t sure it was enough)Stir the yeast into the water in a large bowl until frothy. Stir in the milk and oil , and then 2 cups of flour and salt. Mix, slowly adding in more flour until you cannot mix anymore.
Kneading time! Knead, adding the excess flour, until it is smooth. Cover in a greased bowl and let rise for an hour.
Cut the dough into 10 pieces and either roll or make little pretzels. Let rest 15 minutes while you turn on your toaster oven to preheat it and bring the water, baking soda, and salt to a boil.
Once boiling, turn down the temperature of the water. Boil 3 pieces or so at a time, about a minute for each side. When done, place on a plate, dust with salt, and put into your toaster oven for about 15 minutes.
Bake for 20 minutes, until golden. Makes 10 pretzels or pretzel buns.
Enjoy!
Pretty easy, and it makes enough bread for me for a week. Success!
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