August 6, 2017 - 10:44am
Preserving pretzels
I've been making soft pretzels, and I've noticed that after about a day, the large salt pieces I have on them tend to absorb moisture and melt, leaving a rough texture on the skin of the pretzel. It's still salty, but a bit damp.
Is there a way to prevent this? I've been using a coarse salt to salt them, so it might just be I need to go buy official "pretzel salt"; I haven't tried it yet.
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It is the nature of salt to pick up moisture in a humid environmen, in table salts they add minerals to keep it free flowing I doubt that this is an option for this purpose though.
Gerhard
pretzel salt in the site archives.... http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23747/pretzel-salt-needs-039mythbuster039
Special pretzel salt may have a thin coating of wax to prevent dissolving. Last Easter, I made my own sugar sprinkles, that look very much like pretzel salt. They didn't dissolve but then again, they are not salt. I dried them in my oven on low heat.
I put white crystal sugar in a blender and powdered it. Then I put it into a glass jar and lightly misted it with water. Shook the jar and then spread out the lumps onto parchment to dry. Shook then in a large colander to remove smaller lumps and broke up larger ones with my fingers.
You could try with salt, first grind to a powder and then moisten and shape a few drops of water at a time.
I notice that some vegetable when sliced, excrete natural waxes. Most likely to seal up their own wounds from birds or insects, whatever. I wonder if this could be applied to salt or sugar powder to make clumps for decoration. Namely pretzel salt or hail sugar.
Both sugar and salt will pull the water from such vegetables slices so forming lumps may work without the addition of water. I'm thinking in terms of vegetable slices without peel or seeds tossed with powder until small clumps form. Slices are then removed and the clumps are left to dry and harden. Cucumber and the squash family come to mind.
I use pretzel salt and have had the same issue. The only thing you can do is leave them uncovered and warm them up the next day or so. I make rolls and freeze the ones I don't think I will eat with in a day or so and then toast them. Once you cover them up with anything the moisture in the air will interact and ruin it.
Real pretzel salt will help immensely. Although it will melt eventually, it holds a long time. Most pretzel salt sold online is just kosher salt (coarse salt) mislabeled (intentionally, IMO), so be sure you get the real thing. Actual pretzel salt is not crystalline visually, but more a large grain with no distinct edges. This Chowhound thread has a photo comparing kosher and pretzel salts:
https://www.chowhound.com/post/pretzel-salt-993034
I have found it at Great American Spice Co. Looks like nuts.com might have it as well (hard to tell definitively from their product photo, but it looks right).
jaywillie