Pragmatists among my readership are directed to the recipe at the bottom. The dreamers are invited to start at the beginning and discover the backstory.
Part One: Past
They came in a bulky box the size of a stocky encyclopedia, which made a dry, rough, soothing sound as its contents rattled inside. Snyders of Hanover was the brand and Sourdough Hard Pretzels were unlike anything else in the snack aisles of the supermarkets and convenience stores within reach of my college campus. And though I know for sure that college is where I discovered these, I have no recollection of my actual introduction to this unforgettable food.
For all the misgivings I’ve acquired around gluten—and for all the times I felt awful from consuming half the box in one sitting, or regretted getting knife-sharp crumbs all over the bed—Snyders Hard Pretzels glow immaculate in my gastromemory. Salty, crunchy, craggy, resistant, and stimulating, with the rich aroma of true Laugengebäck, which is an intimidating German term for lye-treated yeast-risen baked goods that are dense, glossy, and mahogany-dark. Outside of the German-speaking countries, lye baking is limited to pretzels and generally only done industrially. After all, the highly alkaline agents required—sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide—are the same ones typically used to produce soap and unclog drains. Caution, caustic, and all that.
College was twenty years ago. And seventeen years ago I was already living back in Poland, missing all kinds of things about what I had thought would be the rest of my life in America. People knowing what a north-east corner refers to when it comes to directions. Single-use mayo, ketchup, and mustard packets. One checkout line that splits off at the front, instead of all the little unjust lines you have to gamble on. This list, now much shorter, was once unthinkably long. And chief among what I missed were these remarkable pretzels. Ungettable anywhere. Unenjoyable when brought over by a father or pal flying in from the States due to the detrimental effects of a scarcity mindset on the already questionable pleasures of mindless gluttony.
What lye does to dough is it breaks down some of the proteins into smaller bits, super-charging the Maillard reaction, which is the one that lends those delectable browned flavor and aroma notes to foods that have been fried, roasted, or baked. Caustic soda can be replaced with a weaker alkalizing ingredient, such as baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) or washing soda (sodium carbonate), but experts agree that real lye is the only real deal.
It never occurred to me to make them. Until it did, six months ago, when I was two raw weeks after a very painful breakup. The minutes dripped by like days. My sadness was vast, but my resolve to live my truth even vaster. Patience nurtured my will, will awakened inventiveness and courage. Out of the depths of me—which I was listening for lovingly at long last—emerged trapped desires. Propelled by loyalty to myself and faith in my resilience, I procured, from German Amazon, a terrifying bottle of special liquid food-grade caustic soda. And I studied the web until a hologram of the available recipes glowed bright in my mind. The dough wasn’t my challenge, though even with my considerable baker’s experience I likely lucked into the perfect recipe. Instead, my challenge was working with skin-dissolving lye, which I handled so carefully and so meticulously that when I attempted these for the first time, for a good half hour I didn’t even think once about the state of my aching heart.
For three or four months I kept track of the number of times I had made these, each one an immersion course in technique. Back then I was also acutely aware of the number of days/weeks/months that had passed since that January Saturday on which my relationship ended. Sixteen weeks, two new clients, seventeen weeks, thirty-one meditation sessions, eighteen weeks, fourteen invoices, and so on. At some point I knew exactly that I had made, say, eleven lye baths and around 600 stick-shaped pretzels, which I had rapidly come to prefer over the pretzel-shaped ones. Then springtime blossomed, yoga became satisfying, a PhD program nearly happened, my sewing leveled up, and a new dance practice commanded my attention. I kept making pretzels but stopped keeping count. The improvements to the process, too, tapered off. Now I do exactly what I did last time, which is a good indication that I’m ready to share my recipe.
Making pretzels for the first time in the late winter of 2022 felt like it saved my life. Next time I resolve to rise after hardship, I will remember that doing something for the first time that’s preposterously difficult may, for a time, bring me the solace I want and the sense of progress and mastery I’m not even realizing I need.
Because for a thing to be “hard pretzels hard” doesn’t just mean it’s crazy difficult, it also means it’s perhaps terrifying and likely so unfathomable you hadn’t even considered considering it. But once you are neck-deep in it, you’re as alive as it gets, enviably immersed in the here-and-now, and bewildered, elated, and humbled by your own capable, hungry humanity.
Part Two: Present
It’s tempting to address this part to other hardcore bakers, because they are the only people I consider likely to obtain lye, dip raw dough in it, proceed with the baking, and produce reliable results. By definition, these are folks who don’t need an exact recipe—all they want to know is that this is “a low-moisture bread dough with minimal yeast and a boost from some refreshed wheat/spelt sourdough starter.” But nearly everyone who tries these asks for the recipe, so here it is.
The ingredient list is simple, perhaps with the exception of the coarse salt, which should not be so rock-hard as to be too salty or break anyone’s teeth. (This implies that the salt must either be light in weight—like Maldon—or very high in moisture—like Guerande.) You’ll also need some food-grade sodium hydroxide or an equivalent alkalizing medium, though I hesitate to call this an ingredient, because it’s really part of the method, the way it has its effect on the dough, then breaks down into inert gases in the heat of the oven.
Here’s what I use.
200 g (¾ cup) refreshed sourdough starter
500 g (4½ cups) strong wheat flour
9 g (1½ tsp) salt
2½ g (½ tsp) sugar
2½ g (½ tsp) dry yeast (or the equivalent in fresh)
around 220 g lukewarm water (the amount depends on the wetness of the starter and other factors)
sel de Guerande or another coarse salt with a loose crystal structure
And here’s what I do. Whisk or sift the flour with the other dry ingredients, then mix the dough. Save the salt for a bit later if you like. (I feed and overnight my sourdough starter on the counter, then I refeed it and put some of it in the fridge. What’s left in the bowl I combine with the remianing ingredients.) Knead this well. (I use my Kitchen Aid.) If you’re diligent, knead again twenty minutes later (now’s when I add the salt), and then once more after another ten minutes. Leave covered to rise for 2-4 hours. A warm spot will speed things along without compromising taste or texture. When the dough has doubled in bulk, shape rods or pretzel twists as desired.
I lightly flour my counter and pat the dough into a fat rectangle, which I keep loosely covered with plastic as I work. With a bench knife, pizza cutter, or plastic bowl scraper I quarter this slab into four smaller rectangles. I divide each into halves, then quarters, then eighths, and so on, until I have sixteen equal-looking oblong strips from one-fourth of my dough. I roll each strip into a rough snake of the maximum length that fits the shorter edge of my baking sheet, which I’ve lined with a baking parchment folded so that it has a little lip on each edge to catch drips. I shape one sheet’s worth of rods at a time, then move each tray into my backup oven for the final rise, where I’ve also placed a pan with some hot water for a bit of warmth and moisture. (Any other suitable proofing chamber or system will work.)
My knees weaken at the thought of describing what comes next in coherent words. Because the pans are in the oven or wherever and they’re just about done proofing and I’ve turned on my actual baking oven to a gentle bread-baking temperature of around 210° and I have the fan on because I want my sourdough hard pretzels hard and crisp and I’m preheating a baking stone on the bottom rack along with my oven. And I’ve mixed the lye solution by adding 45g of 33% natronlauge (also known as E524) in liquid form to 450g of water in a roomy rectangular glass baking dish from IKEA. This is when I use the freezer to harden the dough just enough that it holds its shape well during dipping, though I don’t like the crumbly way it behaves if I’ve frozen it for too long. So this part is a kind of intuitive dance, with me transferring sheets, one at a time, into the freezer, then dipping the sticks, eight at a time, in my alkaline bath, which I do with my hands and fingers clad in the most serious pair of rubber gloves I’ve ever owned (also from IKEA). Importantly, I don’t just dip, I submerge and count to around ten in a disciplined, slo-mo, nonverbal way, then I fish out the wobbly, mostly defrosted and intriguingly yellowed snakes of dough. Then it’s back to the parchment, neatly into rows, and—gloves off—I’m sprinkling loads of crystalline salt onto the wet dough, some of which sticks, much of which doesn’t. Into the oven this goes. Over the next 12 minutes or so my high-intensity slow precision continues, so that when I take the first batch out of the oven I’m usually ready with the next.
Some of my beautifully browned pretzel sticks and most of their skinny ends are nice and crunchy as soon as they finish this first hot dry bake. But mostly they are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, as dense as a bagel and deeply aromatic from the effects of the lye. When they’re hot and fresh, the soft parts have as much appeal as the crisp bits, if not more. But I like my pretzels hard and crunchy in a way that keeps indefinitely (though definitely never does), so once my four batches are done at 210°, I turn the temperature down to around 100° and let everything dry out and crisp up. This usually takes a while. In fact, if the weather isn’t humid, I leave my pretzels out to stale overnight and then pop them in for a much shorter final crisping the next day.
That’s all. And I realize it’s a lot. I only make these if I’m at home all day, able to attend to the different stages of mixing, shaping, proofing, freezing, dipping, salting, baking, and crisping. And though crumbs and salt crystals threaten to sully my floors, I only make these when the house is clean and the counters spotless, otherwise the visual noise and the distraction of clutter might trip me up or make this into a stressful experience. But when all the pieces fall into place, I manage these in around two hours of so-called active time. And mostly I enjoy every meticulous minute, because it’s incredibly satisfying to accomplish the impossible again and again.