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"Adeptus":3e7txw07 wrote: Mmmm. I've made french style bread rolls that included putting water into a hot baking tray in the bottom of the oven. Gives a lovely chewy crust.
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Yep, that's the usual way to try and replicate it in your kitchen. You can put a pizza stone (or some people use bricks) in the bottom of the oven as well.

I guess he might be doing [i:3e7txw07]Cuisine de France[/i:3e7txw07]'s trick of half cooking the bread, then finishing them off in the oven.

the resident baker made these pretzels this weekend...it seemed to be a poorly disguised means of drinking my wit brew.anyhow the recipe is a winner. thanks TBN

+1 for the boiling water poured in a baking tray. The oven may then be left closed for a few minutes to allow steam to form, before putting the bread in.
That's the "coup de buée" (mist burst) for you, and is indeed the secret for a nice crust.
Tha'ts probably what [i:1ufc19gy]Cuisine de France[/i:1ufc19gy] uses for its [i:1ufc19gy]Danish Rolls[/i:1ufc19gy] (always laughed at this association)

Actually, I forgot to post my findings in the Bavarian cook book. It includes a step similar to that in my earlier post where theu pretzels are put into a Lye[/url:1ha1ap3a] (which is sodium hydroxide and has some interesting other uses!), but in the authentic German recipe case they use Natron[/url:1ha1ap3a]. While this may be hard to come by, I read that you could just use 2 tbsp of baking soda in a litre of water. Not quite the same thing, but easy to get. The recipe says to have the water simmering and to dip the pretzel for 30 seconds. I'll post the Bavarian recipe if anyone wants. Can't remember how or if it was different to that one above, but I'd love to try it as my son loves Bretzeln, but they are not so common up in this part of Germany.

Actually, correction. Apparently Natron is German for Baking Soda. Glad I found that out! It looks like the Americans use Lye more.

Only thing I don't like about pretzels is they go stale pretty quick. I like 'em fresh with slabs of butter <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

Don't want to start the debate about them being French [i:2or0fso2]oder[/i:2or0fso2] German...
I agree pretzelns are much better the day they're made.