September 12, 2014 - 8:18am
Pretzel question
Hi,
Have made pretzels a few times but keep having trouble with the pretzels sticking to whatever I bake them on.
I have been using a method that uses lye. After mixing, proofing and shaping the pretzels, I dip them into the lye solution for 10 - 20 seconds. I have tried to bake them on cookie sheets and parchment paper. They stuck badly to both. In fact had to toss the parchment paper batches because I couldn't peel the paper completely from the pretzel.
The versions that use baking soda, have the water boiling. Should I do that with the lye solution? Does the boiling firm up the dough enough to preevent the sticking?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Art
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You don't want to be boiling the lye solution from what I've read. At most, use a warm solution.
The sticking problem will probably be better addressed using silicon baking mats from what I understand.
I'll certainly take you r advice an not boil the lye, but aside from the obvious skin or eye contact with boiling lye ... are there any other reasons not to boil it?
Thanks for the response!
I boil the lye first and then shut it off and later dip dough. This will have nothing to do with the sticking. I use a Silipat and have no issues. You can use a stainless steel pan sprayed with cooking oil but don't use aluminum as the lye will react with it.
Thank You for the response. This sounds like a reasonable approach to thte problem, but why do you boil the lye in the first place?
Boil to have lye dissolve in the water. I've never done it any other way so not sure if it works as well without boiling first.
It will dissolve at room temp. If you heat it to simmer you may get darker crust. Boiling is dangerous and can overboil easil. Plus the steam is not particularly healthy.
Correction: I do bring it to a simmer and cover with a lid so the fumes are not inhaled.
I've had exactly the same problem. Even when I sprayed oil on the parchment, pretzels would stick. Really frustrating. Clearly it's due to the starch created on the dough surface from the dip. Might as well be glue! (Umm, well, it is, of course.) So I switched to using a Silpat and that solved my problem. Sure beats picking the paper off the bottom of the pretzels, often losing the entire bottom of the pretzel.
I have never boiled or even heated water for lye. I just dissolve the lye in tap water. I have read contradictory things about the boiling -- some sources say do, some say don't. My opinion is that some people mistake pretzels in lye for bagels in a boiling water bath. They are not the same thing. From my experience, boiling or heating the lye bath is unnecessary. I get great color on my lye-dipped pretzels and have never boiled the water or even heated it.
Thanks, everyone for your answers and participation. I really do appreciate it!
I have used lye and it will disolve nicely at room temp. my thought was that using boiling lye water would slightly harden the dough so that it wouldn't stick as badly. The majority believe that using the silicone mat is the best way to avoid the problem.
Soooo I am not going to boil the lye, dip in for just a few seconds 5-6 (as suggested) and use the silpat mat.