Bread Baking Day’s Topic is “Breads with a Twist” and its hostess is Natashya form Living in the kitchen with puppies. While still thinking about a recipe I saw a show on TV where they explained how to make “Burger pretzels”. This is a local speciality which is selled mostly around the castle Schloss Burg and which is part of the “Bergische Kaffeetafel”. This is a tradition similar to afternoon tea in Greatbritain. The “Bergische Kaffeetafel” is served with Coffee from the Dröppelminna, the dark rye Schwarzbrot, sweet white bread called Stuten or Platz, heartshaped waffles, rice pudding with sugar and cinnamon, Burger pretzels, curd, sugar beet molasses, cheese and bacon.

This preztels have not the typical form of a pretzel we know from South Germany but its ends are twisted for four times.

I liked the Idea to make this kind of local speciality for bread baking day immediately.So I checked  the cookbook Einladung zur Bergischen Kaffeetafel from Andrea Jungbluth-Zehnpfennig for the recipe. I was a little bit puzzled because the recipe called for a pinch of baking powder but when I checked the recipes available in the web all had some baking powder included. So I stick to the recipe. I only changed the preparation a little bit and add the sugar add the end to the dough.

The taste of the pretzels reminds of zwieback but they have a softer crumb. They are a nice treat with a cup of coffee (Dip (‘Zopp’)them in the coffee, that is the traditional way to eat them). For me they could be less sweet but the boyfriend likes them this way.

Burger Brezeln

yields 20 pretzels of 20g each

Preferment:

• 5g fresh yeast
• 50g water
• 50g flour Type 550

Dough:

• whole preferment
• 200g flour Type 550
• 2g baking powder
• 75g water
• 1 pinch salt
• 40 g soft butter
• 100 g sugar

Preferment: Dissolve yeast in water and stir the mixture into the flour. Ferment for 30 min.

Dough: Now mix the flour with salt and baking powder and add this as well as butter and water to the preferment. Knead for about 5 min (with Hand) untill a smooth and firm dough develops.Now add the sugar in small steps. Add always a tablespoon at once and knead in between always for 1 min. You can feel how the sugar draws the water out of the dough. The dough becomes soft and a little bit sticky.

Ferment for 30 min.

Divide the dough in pieces of 20g each. Roll each piece into a strand of 35 cm and form a loop. Twist the ends around each other for four times, then lay them under the middle part of the loop to form a pretzel.

Place the pretzels on a paper lined baking tray and proof for one hour.

Bake at 175°C for about 20 min.