A pretzel for New Years? This is no ordinary bread pastry made from wheat flour, water, sugar, and yeast, then sprinkled with coarse salt. The New Year’s Pretzels: is a traditional good luck bread served by German families at New Year’s. Unbeknown to Sean I plan on baking one of these tasty treats from scratch while we are on the Suwannee River New Years Eve.
I altered the recipe in order to make one on the Suwannee River. You can get the full recipe in the “Three Rivers Cookbook” or on line.
0.5 c. milk
0.125 c. butter
0.5 pkg. active dry yeast
0.5 tsp. salt
0.125 c. sugar
1.75 c. flour
0.5 large egg
0.25 c. powdered sugar
0.25 T. water
0.375 tsp. vanilla or almond extract
0.0625 c. almonds or walnuts, chopped
Heat milk and butter until very warm. Mix yeast, salt, sugar, and 0.875 cup of flour. Slowly beat warm milk into yeast mixture. Beat for 2 minutes. Add eggs and 0.875 of flour. Beat for an additional 2 minutes. Add enough flour to form a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place dough in a greased bowl. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch dough down and let rise again until doubled. (1 hour more). Divide dough in half.
Shape pretzel: Roll dough into a rope about 7.5″ long. Cross the ends leaving a large loop in the center. Flip loop back onto crossed ends to form a pretzel. Repeat with remaining dough. Place pretzels on greased baking sheets. Let rise 15 minutes more. Bake at 375F. for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks. Mix powdered sugar, water and vanilla to form a thin icing. Spread icing on pretzels and sprinkle with chopped nuts. Makes 1 small pretzel.
Pictures of the event will appear in the New Year.
– Jeff
Liquid Rhythm Adventures' Journal 