Pretzel Rolls

This is just about a quick and easy way to make pretzel rolls yourself.

Professionally made pretzel rolls are actually bathed in sodium hydroxide solution (NaOH) before baking. This lye is highly corrosive and therefore quite dangerous. In private households it shouldn’t be used in the kitchen without special safety measures. The disarmed variant succeeds quite simply with a soda bath - sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), if one dissolves completely normal household soda in hot water. The salt is chemically correctly named sodium hydrogen carbonate (NaHCO3). You should make a 7% solution in water.

So how does the soda come to the bun? I use unbaked frozen roll blanks. In my case, of course, they are made from potato bread dough - the recipe makes enough for 16 small rolls. Since they’re frozen, they bathe well in the boiling lye liquid for 2 minutes without turning into runny lumps of slush. Then immediately on the tray, sprinkle with coarse salt and then they go into the oven preheated to 230°C, for 25-30 minutes. The rolls will be darker than unleavened, but that’s the way it should be. A hit on the breakfast table at home!

pretzel rolls