Soft Pretzels with Spicy Beer Mustard

My family loves to go to baseball games during the summer. Most of my family members continue this tradition for the love of baseball, but I'm in it for the love of food. I honestly could not care less about sports, but I adore stadium treats. Among my favorite stadium snacks are big pretzels. They're soft, salty, chewy, lightly sweet and pair perfectly with a bit of summer sun or chilly fall weather.

I adapted this soft pretzel recipe from America's Test Kitchen's Bread Illustrated cookbook. Normally I follow America's Test Kitchen recipe exactly because I know they've tested these recipes a million times and written them to perfection. However, when I first made this recipe I made a pretty major mistake: I cut the dough into 8 pieces instead of 12 pieces. I didn't notice this mistake until I had already shaped the pretzels, so I just decided to roll with it. To compensate for the larger pretzels, I turned down the oven from 425 F to 400 F and left them in for a few minutes longer. My accidental twist on the original recipe turned out to be super delicious and ultra puffy. I love a nice puffy pretzel, so I decided to write my mistake into this recipe. 

Long story short, these pretzels are perfect in every way. They taste delicious served with spicy mustard (recipe included) or slathered with some fruity jam (my personal bias). 

Let me know what you think of the recipe and don't forget to follow the sustainability tips below! 

Time: 2 days for the mustard and 3 1/2 hours for the pretzels

Serves: 8 people

Makes: 8 pretzels and 3/4 cup mustard

Ingredients

For the mustard

• 2 tablespoons whole brown mustard seeds

• 1/4 cup ground mustard seeds

• 1/4 cup beer of choice (IPA works well here)

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 1 tablespoon maple syrup

• 3/4 teaspoon salt

For the Pretzels

• 3 3/4 cups bread flour

• 4 teaspoons kosher salt

• 2 teaspoons instant yeast

• 5 1/2 cups water, divided

• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar, packed

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1/4 cup baking soda

• Pretzel salt or flaky sea salt
  

Steps

For the Mustard

In a spice grinder, a mortar and pestle or a plastic bag with a rolling pin, lightly crush the whole brown mustard seeds. If you'd like more seed-forward mustard, only crush them about halfway. If you'd like more liquidy mustard, grind them to a powder. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and refrigerate for 2 full days to let the flavor mellow out. 

For the pretzels

1. In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, whisk together bread flour, salt and yeast. In a large liquid measuring cup or small bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups water, brown sugar and vegetable oil until the sugar has dissolved.

2. Turn mixer on low (or start stirring with a large spoon) while you slowly add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture. Mix until the dough forms a cohesive mass. Turn speed up to medium-low and knead for about 8 minutes. If you're not using a stand mixer, transfer the dough to a lightly floured counter and knead for about 15 minutes, or until dough is very stretchy and springs back when poked. Form kneaded dough into a taught ball, place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp tea towel. Let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.

3. Toward the end of the dough's rising time, put the remaining 4 cups of water along with the baking soda in a medium saucepan over high heat to bring to a boil. After the dough has risen, preheat oven to 400 F.

4. Once risen, punch down lightly on the dough to deflate. Transfer the dough to a clean countertop and stretch/roll it out into an 8-inch by 6-inch rectangle. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough vertically into 8 pieces (to end up with 8 6-inch by 1-inch pieces). Working with one piece of dough at a time, stretch and roll the dough into a 22-inch long rope. Form the rope into a "U" shape with the base of the U being about 2 inches wide. Then, cross the two arms of the U, twist them once and fold them down, pressing gently to attach them to the base of the U. Transfer pretzel to a lightly floured baking sheet and repeat with remaining strips of dough. 

5. After all the pretzels have been shaped and placed on the baking sheet, cover them gently with a damp tea towel and let them rise for about 15 minutes, or until they are puffy. Then, place a few of the pretzels seam side down into the boiling water for 30 seconds, rotating halfway through. Remove them with a slotted spoon and place them onto a wire cooling rack. Repeat with remaining pretzels. 

6. Brush the flour off of the baking tray that you used previously and sprinkle it with a few teaspoons of flaky salt or pretzel salt, or 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Transfer pretzels to the baking sheet. Sprinkle tops of pretzels with a little more salt. Bake for 18-23 minutes, or until deep golden brown. Dig in with dipping sauces of choice!
   

Sustainability Tips

• Flour: King Arthur is my absolute favorite brand of flour because they are a B Corp, which means they need to meet super strict environmental and social standards. Alternatively, you could seek out a local flour producer. (Pst! If you use a brand other than King Arthur, I recommend using the weight measurement rather than the volume measurement.)

• Maple Syrup: Go for local syrup! This will decrease GHGs from travel and maybe even help you get to know your local syrup producers. Read all about it in my liquid sweeteners post!

• Whole and ground mustard seeds: Go for organic spices if you can afford it. This way, your spices will be contributing less to pollution from nasty synthetic pesticides.