Happy Pretzel Day!

Today is National Pretzel Day. Ever since I traveled to Munich for Oktoberfest, I've been obsessed with Bavarian soft pretzels. In Germany, they are huge and crusty and delicious! Perfect to soak up all the beer.

Me and Carrie with a pretzel the size of our heads!

I've had a hard time finding anything that even comes close to Bavarian pretzels in the US, so I've had to make my own. I was never pleased with my results, until I found this book: Pretzel Making at Home. 

I even got to meet the author and watch her shape pretzels at a book signing. I immediately ran home and tried to make my own. It turns out, to make super authentic pretzels with a brown crust, you need food grade lye. There's simply no other way to get the same results any other way. For those of us who cant find or don't want to use lye, the book offers a decent substitute: baked baking soda.

To make soft pretzels, after making the dough and shaping it, you boil the twists in the lye solution for a minute before baking them. That develops the crust.

You can top them with whatever you want, salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, herbs, cheese, cinnamon, whatever! I prefer savory pretzels. With spicy mustard. Or hot cheese sauce. Yummmmmm.

So anytime I have an uncontrollable desire for a Bavarian pretzel, I can either fly to Munich or make them myself at home. Either way, pretzels are a delicious anytime treat. Happy Pretzel Day!

John and Carrie devouring a pretzel after many beers

Martha Challenge #45- German Chocolate Cupcakes

In honor of Oktoberfest and to remember our recent trip to Germany, I decided to make Martha's German chocolate cupcake recipe. According to her cookbook, German chocolate isn't German at all! It's merely the name of the kind of chocolate used in the cake. Oh well, they're still German to me!

First I made the coconut-pecan frosting. It's a cooked frosting, made of evaporated milk, egg yolks, brown sugar, vanilla, and of course, coconut and pecans. It came out very chunky and thick, maybe I added too much coconut or pecans, because it wasn't exactly a spreadable frosting. But the last recipe I used to make it, was too runny and went everywhere. I prefer this one.
Then, the cupcakes. These are a traditional buttermilk cupcake with Baker's German chocolate. The recipe called for 5 ounces, but the bars come in 4 ounces, so I added one more ounce of regular semisweet chocolate. Didn't seem to make a difference. Excellent batter, very light and fluffy, and it baked up perfectly, slightly domed. I usually have problems with chocolate cupcakes, they either rise too much and overflow or not enough. These were great.

Martha's method is to cut the cupcakes in half horizontally and sandwich the filling in between as well as on top, but that's a bit messy for me. Instead, I filled the cupcakes with about a teaspoon or so of filling, and piled the rest on top.
I had just enough frosting for 24 cupcakes, even though I baked 27. Oh well, plain cupcakes for me!
I reserved 24 toasted pecans to put on top, so there was no mistaking what these beauties are. I know people love German chocolate cake, because the filling is very rich but the chocolate isn't overpowering. All in all, a good recipe, worth saving.

I'm planning on more German-inspired cupcakes, including black forest cake, maybe an apple strudel, and some kind of beer and pretzel cupcake. Stay tuned!