Baked In: Soft Pretzel Baking Kit (Ocado) By @Cinabar

I really like pretzels and as I have been baking a lot more recently I couldn’t resist this kit when I spotted it on Ocado. I have use the Baked In kits before and was pleased with the results of a rainbow cake, so I was interested to see how the pretzel one worked.

I opened up the box and found several bags, all numbered. There were step by step instructions on the packets and I worked my way through the stages. The recipe was quite simple, melt the butter with the milk not letting it get too hot, add it to the flour, yeast and salt to make a dough. The main bit of time is that you then leave the dough to prove until it doubles in size which takes between 60-90 minutes.

After that we split the dough into equal pieces, roll it into a rope and then form a pretzel. These are dunked in a bath of sodium bicarbonate and boiling water before being topped with salt and baked. I know pretzels should be fairly dark in colour and the recipe states to bake them for 10-15 minutes. I had a look and decided to pop them back in for a bit longer as I wanted a bit more colour in my pretzels. I was really pleased with how they looked.

Taste wise they were delicious, an absolutely authentic taste, with a lovely touch of salt all over them. Spectre is hooked on my Focaccia bread and when I said I was going to bake these pretzels he muttered something and I could tell he wanted Focaccia. Having tried them he thoroughly enjoyed them and asked me to make sure we do them again. That is better (and more difficult to achieve) than a Paul Hollywood handshake. A total thumbs up for this Baked In: Soft Pretzel Baking Kit.