Pretzel Brot

Inspired by these, I thought I'd try making my own.  I had wanted to tackle this project this past weekend, but our kitchen was otherwise um, occupied.

So, I spent the day working at home (in part to avoid students trying to add into my classes) and was able to weave in this baking project into my research work.

I'm not especially pleased with the Laugenbrezel recipe that I used--the dough was very, very sticky.  I think next time I try these, I will use my regular pretzel recipe from Martha Stewart's cookbook instead.  I had light Jarlsberg cheese, smoked turkey breast, and diced orange bell pepper for the inside.  (Lulu is fascinated with the orange bell peppers for some reason, so I bought the smallest, lightest one I could find last time I was at the store, even though we didn't need one)

The first one I tried definitely looked um, mangled.

You can see the orange bell pepper sticking out on the top there

But, I started to get the hang of it by the end.

Not too shabby--held together during boiling with no leakage

I made six stuffed pretzel rolls and plan on bringing them with me to school for lunch next week.

various levels of success

I boiled them in baking soda-ed gently boiling water prior to those photos--that's why the one sort of split in two. I had to be really careful, too, like I was cooking knödel/dumplings.

But, twenty minutes in a 450F oven, and they all looked very tasty!

fresh from the oven!

And I'm quite pleased with the later ones I did--they look just like the commercial stuff I ate last week:

Look at that beauty!

but they certainly tasted a LOT better!

Next time, I think rather than dicing the bell pepper, I might leave it in slices. Ditto for the cheese. And I think a thin schmear of mustard would bring it all together in a nice way.

Will definitely have to experiment with these again!