pictures cannot describe how delicious this tasted…. when they cam out of the oven i was already late for an appointment but couldn’t resist eating one, slowly, bite by bite before leaving the house. the mess that came with making these was so worth it all of a sudden. what mess? well let me tell you: don’t EVER pour half a cup of sodium bicarbonate into 2 litres of boiling water. my kitchen basically almost exploded. floods of water on the floor. white stains all over the stove. nonono, don’t do that. instead, follow this recipe carefully…

ingredients:

0.5 pack instant yeast

4.5 cups flour

2 tbsp light brown sugar

2 tsp salt

1.5 cups warm water

4 tbsp rapeseed oil

0.5 cup bicarbonate of soda

1 egg

sea salt

za’atar

instructions:

1. mix yeast, flour, salt sugar gently. add 3 tbsp of the oil. slowly add the water and combine with your hands. then, using a dough hook mix the dough for about 5 minutes, until it’s soft and doesn’t stick to the bowl anymore.

2. cover the dough in some oil, cover the bowl with a towel and let it rise in a warm enclosed space for 45min-1h.

3. divide the dough into 10 pieces, roll each piece into a long rope and create the pretzel shape. this video will tell you how.

4. pre-heat the oven to 220°C.

5. add 2 litres of cold water to a big pot. pour the bicarbonate of soda into the water and only NOW heat up the pot. if you add the bicarbonate of soda to boiling water you’ll be left with an exploded kitchen like mine.

6. once it’s simmering, turn the heat down slightly and with a skimmer, add two pretzels to the water. leave them in there for 1 minute max and place them on an oven tray covered with oiled parchment paper. if the parchment paper isn’t oiled the pretzels will completely stick to the paper. repeat with the remaining pretzels.

7. combine the egg with a tablespoon of water and brush each pretzel with the mixture. sprinkle with sea salt and za’tar.

8. bake for about 15 minutes and devour.