While people in Poznań enjoy their famous St Martin’s croissants on St Martin’s Day, the rest of Europe has its own delicious traditions. Let me introduce you to St Martin’s Brezeln – sweet pretzels popular in Germany, often baked alongside little bread figures for the occasion. The dough itself is very simple – a classic yeast dough, and I’d even say it’s a pleasure to work with: soft, elastic and not needing extra flour when shaping. After baking, the pretzels are brushed with melted butter and coated in sugar, although it’s also common to sprinkle them with pearl sugar before baking. They are absolutely delightful – soft, tender and lightly sweet. Highly recommended!
Ewa, thank you for sharing the recipe :).
Makes 12.
Ingredients for the yeast dough:
- 500 g strong white bread flour
- 10 g dried yeast or 20 g fresh yeast
- 150 ml milk, lukewarm
- 150 g sour cream or natural yoghurt
- 75 g sugar
- 75 g butter, melted
- 16 g vanillin sugar
Mix the flour with the dried yeast (if using fresh yeast, first prepare a starter). Add the remaining ingredients, adding the melted butter towards the end, and knead until you have a soft, smooth and elastic dough. Place the dough in a lightly floured bowl, cover with a tea towel, and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size (about 1½ hours).
Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Roll each piece into a rope about 50 cm long and shape into a pretzel. Place the pretzels on two baking trays lined with baking parchment. Cover and leave to rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes, or until doubled in size.
Bake at 180°C for about 13 minutes. The pretzels should remain pale, with just a light golden colour.
To finish:
- 25 g butter, melted
- caster sugar, for coating
Brush the hot pretzels with melted butter and roll them in sugar.
Method for bread machine users:
Place all the yeast dough ingredients into the bread machine in the following order: liquid ingredients first, then dry ingredients, and finally the yeast. Select the ‘dough’ programme (kneading and first rise). Once the programme has finished, remove the dough, knead it lightly, and continue according to the main recipe above.
Enjoy!
Recipe source – Chefkoch.de.
I read all comments, but unfortunately I can't answer them all. Before posting a question, make sure nobody has asked a similar one (this will be facilitated by the search engine included in the comments). Comments with links may not be published.
Blog author