Warcraft Breads – Rock-Salted Pretzel

I got a shiny new KitchenAid mixer. It’s the bright red one. I decided I wanted to make tons and tons of breads and such with it. But I needed a plan. Which breads? How often? How would I discover new recipes? Then later that night in the middle of the raid, it hit me. I sat to eat a Buttery Wheat Roll… and I thought, hurm, I could MAKE wheat rolls now!

So I decided to start easy, with some Pretzels. I love pretzels. But it’s not Brewfest, which is the only place in game I knew to get pretzels. A quick Wowhead search lead me to Rock-Salted Pretzels sold by Plugger Spazring.

Tasty golden pretzels.

So I got an alt to remote me to the Grim Guzzler in Blackrock Depths.

Joyia, hoping a Direbrew Mole Machine to Blackrock.

Sure enough, he sells my pretzels. Awesome. Now for the real world equivalent.

Picking up a full stack of 20. I love warm pretzels.

Pretzels are shockingly easy to make. All you need is a little flour, salt, sugar, yeast, water, a bit more salt, baking soda, and butter. I would put it’s cooking skill at around 50, as it doesn’t require any special equipment or tricky bits. All told, it takes about an hour to make.

Here’s the ingredients:

DOUGH:

  • 2 and 1/2 cups of flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 package instant yeast (2 and 1/4th teaspoons)
  • 7/8ths to 1 cup water

Bath and Topping:

  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 2 tablespoons baking soda
  • coarse, kosher or pretzel salt, optional
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

To start, let’s make the dough.

Add all the dough ingredients into your mixer. The water needs to be slightly warm, just like the yeast likes. The variation in the water is due to the variation in air moisture. For moist areas or during the summer, use less water, otherwise a bit more. I always start with 7/8th and just add small splashes until the dough doesn’t have any crumbly bits that don’t want to stick to the main ball. Mix until all blended and starting to form a big sticky ball.

Dough pre-water

The Dough, all mixed up, ready to knead.

Now, using a bread hook, knead the dough for 5 minutes. (Or knead by hand, to level your strength and stamina.)

Once the dough is good and kneaded, form into a ball, lightly flour and stick in a bag for 30 min. This gives the yeast time to rise. Also gives you time to farm some herbs or ore or maybe run a dungeon, if you are a tank or healer with a short queue.

The dough, balled up, floured and rising.

Go ahead and mix up the “bath”. Boil the 1 cup of water, then add it to the baking soda. It will fizz and bubble. The baking soda needs to completely dissolve in the water.

The baking soda and water bath for the Pretzels.

Once your dough is done rising, now comes the FUN part. Preheat your oven to 475 and prepare a baking sheet with either parchment paper or spray to keep your pretzels from sticking.

Lightly grease a space to work with your dough, and divide it into 8 equal pieces, then let them sit for about 5 min. Pour your bath into a 9″ square pan.

Dough separated before rolling.

Roll each piece of dough into a long, thin rope (about 28″ to 30″ long), and twist each rope into a pretzel.

Pretzel dough, all rolled out and ready to twist.

Working with 4 pretzels at a time, place them in the pan with the baking soda/water, spooning the water over their tops; leave them in the water for 2 minutes before placing them on the baking sheet. This baking soda “bath” will give the pretzels a nice, golden-brown color.

Pretzels in their bath.

Transfer the pretzels to the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle them lightly with coarse, kosher, or pretzel salt (I used regular kosher salt, as I didn’t have any coarse pretzel salt, they were just as good). Allow them to rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

Pretzels all ready for the oven.

Bake the pretzels for 8 to 9 minutes, or until they’re golden brown.

All done! Beautiful golden brown.

Remove the pretzels from the oven, and brush them thoroughly with the melted butter. Keep brushing the butter on until you’ve used it all up. It’s  a lot of butter, but that’s the way the brewmasters make them, so just keep using it.

All buttered up and ready for restoring health!

Now you should have 8 large Rock-Salted Pretzels to restore health! This recipe makes for a great base to make variations of pretzels too. Add cinnamon to the dough for a tasty spicy pretzel, or cheese to the top for nommable cheese pretzels. Also, I generally use King Arthur Flour, as it is just a higher quality flour. If you make breads and cakes often, I recommend trying it, as it completely changed the quality of all my recipes. (KAF is like a +10 to cooking.)

This recipe is also really great with kids. They love playing with the dough. You can make pretzel sticks or nuggets as well, but that will likely shorten the cooking time a bit.

Now, time to kick up your feet with some Conjured Glacial Water and a Rock-Salted Pretzel and enjoy the fruits of having the cooking profession.

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