The giant soft pretzel may be the single most iconic food of Octoberfest. It’s everywhere in Munich at the ‘world headquarters’ of the festival. Now you, too, can make authentic Bavarian Pretzels with a few common ingredients and a little patience…
The classic Bavarian Pretzel: Big, fat and chewy…
You could probably go out to the kitchen right now and find all the ingredients you need to make this Octoberfest fixture already in your pantry. It’s that basic. But Papa Drexler’s ancient and venerable recipe does include some traditional twists you’ll want to note…
Not a party without them…
“Bavarian pretzels, or ‘Bayerische Brezen’, are one of Germany’s most beloved snacks: soft and chewy inside, lightly crisp outside, deeply golden, and finished with coarse salt,” says germanfoods.org. “They are a beer garden classic, an Oktoberfest essential, and the perfect partner for Bavarian sweet mustard, Obazda, Weisswurst, and cold Weissbier.”
So, there you go… You gotta have ’em or it just isn’t an Octoberfest!
Papa’s legacy
This pretzel recipe is just one of a hoard passed down to recipe contributor Tim Drexler by his baker Dad. It’s guaranteed authentic – and some of the more unusual details really do scream ‘old school’..
I hope you’ll have as much fun as I did going through this recipe. And I hope you’re as impressed as I was by the results!
What you do
Please – PLEASE! – follow the recipe as written. This is a baking exercise and, as we all know, baking is more science than art. That’s particularly true in this recipe, which uses a pre-bloomed yeast leaven-ing and, later in the process, a special alkaline bath, to create the cherished, rich brown, lightly crispy crust.
Timing is especially of the essence, especially in the maturing and leavening process.
Baking time may vary depending on the size of your pretzels and the diameter of your dough ‘ropes’.
According to the ‘community’ comments at the bottom of the recipe post, there’s some debate as to how much flour to use. Feel free to add more duri9ng the kneading step to achieve a workable dough.
It’s crucial to form the pretzels with lots of room in the loops. The dough ‘ropes’ will expand to two or three times their proofed diameter when baking. A ‘loose’ twist is essential to produce classic Bavar-ian pretzels with three equal-sized ‘windows’.
DO bake in a really hot (450 F) oven to get that classic crust just right!
DO sprinkle liberally with coarse salt while still hot to ensure an authentic finish. The salt also per-fects the flavour of these pretzels, which really doesn’t come together until you bit into one and the salt garnish dissolves onto your taste buds, spiking the nutty, earthy flavour. If you’ve done every-thing right, you should experience a veritable umami blast!
My take
These truly iconic pretzls may be the ultimate snack for any beer-and-cheese dip occasion – not just Octoberfest! More than one recipe I looked at researching this post praised them as THE favourite snack of all Germany – and neighbouring countries, as well.
Devotées of the famed Montreal Bagel will notice a lot of similarities between this recipe and their favourite. That’s probably because the folks who ‘invented’ the Montreal Bagel came from Germany in the first place. And everybody who came afterward just copied their process…
~ Maggie J.