We are off to Mass this morning and then in search of some big, soft pretzels for lunch. This has been our tradition since the children were little (it was a great way to
bribereward them for coming to Mass on cold Friday mornings). I have tried to make them myself, but the results weren't very good. Actually, they weren't very edible. Too bad I didn't save them up (they would probably be petrified by now) because this
pretzel wreath looks like a fun and easy craft. You can read more about the
Lenten pretzel tradition here. Have a great Friday! Oh and if you have a fool proof pretzel recipe, please let me know!
*UPDATE
In the combox, Melissa points us towards two possible recipes:
From A Continual Feast over at Danielle Bean's blog
From Women for Faith and Family (scroll down a bit)
And Barb offers one that her family put a stamp of approval on last Sunday:
From The Humble Housewife
I'll let you know which ones this fool can proof next Friday!
How wonderful! I had actually forgotten that pretzels were traditional during Lent! We made some last year for the feast of St. Joseph, using this recipe from Women for Faith and Family. (You might have to scroll down a bit). We had great success with this recipe, but as it is a bit time consuming, I think I might try Danielle Bean's recipe for Lenten Pretzels next time. In fact, they just may be our lunch today! :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Friday!
P.S. I loved your Lamb of God calendar so much that we made one of our own, too! Thanks for the idea, and for the link to Karen E. I really must thank her, too!
Deborah (Humble Housewife) posted a recipe a few weeks ago. We made them for our Championship game party and they were delicious (maybe too delicious for Lent?).
ReplyDeleteYou can find the recipe here:
http://blog.humblehousewife.com/2008/01/pretzel-is-beautiful-thing.html
We take a package of frozen bread dough and let it thaw. Then we fill a huge pot (stock pot) full of water with about a half a cup of lye. Yes, drain cleaner!. We set it to simmer (almost boil but not) while we roll the pretzles. When we have a bunch on a cookie sheet, we put them in the lye water a few at a time until they turn a dark yello/orange and float. Then, we move them to a greased cookie sheet and salt them, put them in the oven at about 350 until they are a nice, dark brown. They are chewy and gooooood. We tweak the temp of the oven or the salt content, even the lye makes a difference in the chewyness. It sounds gross but we've been doing it in our German/Minnesotan town for many generations!
ReplyDeleteLye, yikes, but I Googled and it seems to be true. However, I saw one recommendation to use a lye-to-water ratio of 1:64. Does the stockpot have 32 cups of water along with the half cup of lye?
ReplyDeleteProbably about that. I usually just pour a bit in and go with the "feel"of it. I think it's a built in, memory thing from watching my dad and grandma do it. I think the 1:64 ratio must be right, and I don't want to poison anyone but if there's not enough lye, they don't turn out well. I talked to the lady at the local, grocery store bakery yesterday and asked her if they sell fresh dough (for pretzels) she didn't know, but she asked what for. I told her that I didn't want to wait for the frozen stuff to thaw and she laughed. She said she'd lived here her whole life and that she makes them with lye too but that it's hard to find nowadays. We both agreed that the "Auntie Annie" pretzels and store pretzels are really good, but they're not the same as the ones we know how to make from lye! I'm getting HUNGRY just talking about them!
ReplyDeleteYeah!!!! It opened right up ;)
ReplyDeleteThe thought of making homemade pretzels intimidates me. However, I am looking forward to hearing which recipe you end up liking... (Then, maybe we will give it a shot!)