🎉 Welcome to my newsletter, The Boy Who Bakes, a subscriber-supported newsletter, dedicated to all things baked. This is a post for paid subscribers, who receive exclusive weekly recipes. You can become a paid subscriber to get access to this recipe and every recipe moving forward plus you’ll also get access to the archive including every recipe posted on the newsletter. It costs just £5 a month and that helps me continue writting this newsletter. To subscribe, to either the paid or free newsletter, click the link below.🎉
Years ago, there was a bakery in New York called the City Bakery. It was a magical place that was known for two things. A yearly hot chocolate festival and, more importantly, to me at least, their pretzel croissants. Edit: This wasn't meant to read like the start of a fairy tale, but for some reason that's how it sounds in my head, like a parent reading a bedtime story about a magical thing called the pretzel croissant. I was in love with that croissant; I got one every time I was in the city, and sometimes I made multiple return visits. It was a little bit sweet, a little bit salty, and it had the characteristic pretzel flavour but wrapped up in a super flaky croissant. The bakery switched off its ovens and closed its doors back in 2019, after almost 30 years in operation. The pretzel croissant has never left my memory, and I have sadly never encountered another version, a fact that is utterly baffling. It could be that I was the croissant's biggest fan and no one else really cared for them that much, but I am shocked another bakery hasn't tried to make their own version. Note: If you know anyone making a version, please let me know. I am willing to travel for croissants.
Pretzels have an incredibly distinct flavour that comes from the rather unique method used to make them. Once the pretzels are shaped and proofed, they are dunked in a lye solution. Yes, lye, you know. What drain cleaner is made from. Sounds delicious, right? It turns out it really is delicious, though. Lye is a particularly strong alkaline solution, which gives the pretzels both their characteristic colour and their chew. The lye is also responsible for the pretzels particular taste, a slight bitterness, and a deeply toasty flavour. Deep down, I just want to call it ‘pretzely flavour’ but that doesn’t seem quite descriptive enough, so deeply toasty it is. You can get a version of this flavour, the colour, and the texture by using other alkaline ingredients, like a baking soda solution, but none work quite as well as the real deal, food-grade lye.
City Bakery’s croissants weren’t dunked in the lye; instead, they used the solution as an alternative to an egg wash. I actually tried to find a video of the process, and this is what I found online.
I wasn't in the mood for whipping up a batch of croissants this week, although I am know determined to try and make a batch of proper pretzel croissants in homage to the bakery at some point soon. Instead, I settled on making another favourite, a stuffed bun with a pretzel accent. I have made versions of these buns before, but they’ve mainly been sweet, a brioche bun stuffed with pastry cream and some sort of fruit. For the savoury version, I started with a soft, fluffy pretzel bun and then made a béchamel made with a bit of garlic powder, lots of cheese, bacon, and a little chopped chive. The two recipes together seemed like a very appropriate combination and at the same time made me think of German beer halls but also of American baseball games. To be honest, in both of those locations, I am only interested in the snacks. Sports and beer? Not really my thing.
In the recipe, I have used a traditional lye solution, which you can read more about here, but let me just say this. Lye is corrosive and should be used with a lot of care. Please wear protective gloves, use it in a well-ventilated area, and do not let this get on your skin. If that feels a little extreme to you, there are alternatives. One, you can simply make a baking soda solution and use that instead, or two, if you want more of a halfway house, you can bake some baking soda. Baking the bicarbonate of soda at 180ºC (350ºF) on a foil-lined baking tray changes the sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate, increasing its strength and bringing it closer to lye. This process means the pretzel rolls, made with this supercharged baking soda, will be a touch darker, have more shine to them, and, most importantly, have more of that classic pretzel flavour when compared to versions made with regular baking soda. If you make a batch of this boosted baking soda, make sure you store it in a sealed container and label it well. Do not use it for your regular baking. While it is not corrosive like lye, it's definitely an irritant, so try to avoid getting it on your clothes, plus wear the gloves; it's better to be safe than sorry.
🇺🇸USA BOOK TOUR🇺🇸
Don't forget I am headed across the pond at the end of next week for my US book tour, and I will be making stops in the following places.
Minneapolis: Sept 30th and Oct 1st
Seattle: Oct 2nd
San Francisco: Oct 3rd
McLean VA: Oct 5th
Washington DC: Oct 6th
NYC: Oct 8th
Lots of you have messaged me to say you are coming along to one of the stops, and I am so excited to meet you!
Quick word on the NYC stop. I haven’t announced where this stop is happening or what exactly the event is, but I am beginning to worry that it may not come together in time and won't happen. If that ends up being the case, I may organise an impromptu meetup, maybe at a bakery; potentially, let me know if you’d be interested in that.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Boy Who Bakes to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.