October 23, 2010 - 12:51pm
Pretzel Rolls : Lye vs. Kansui
I have been reading the pros and cons about using lye in the 'bath water' when making pretzel rolls. Then it occured to me that I have a bottle of 'kansui' AKA Chinese lye water sitting in my pantry. I use it when making noodles. Has anyone tried using it as a substitute for lye when baking?? If so, what proportions of kansui to water would you suggest? I have some dough rising (my own concoction) to try making pretzel rolls and I was going to use baking soda but I think I will experiment with the kansui. It only takes a teaspoon or so for a large batch of noodles and it is reaaaaaally cheap at my Oriental market so what the heck! I will post results- meanwhile, help!
June
"Live, love, laugh, and bake often..."
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I haven't ordered from them so i cannot vouch for them in any way but if I do deccide to go the lye way I will be trying them.
I have that 碱水, and it's PH value is much weaker than lye, on par with baking soda, I don't think you could get the same color and flavor with that.
You are right- the kansui didn't work at all. I wasn't sure how much to use but on the bottle it reads "use 50 parts of water to one part kanui to refresh cuttlefish"- or something like that. Still, the rolls were no different in color than my control rolls. All I got were soggy, stuck-to-the-pan rolls even with a generous bed of semolina to rest on. Now I have mucho scrubbing to do. Ack. Oh well, lesson learned- save the kansui for noodles, which really does work. I did bake a batch of baking soda, per the NYT article so maybe that will do the trick. Stay tuned.
June