These buns are so soft inside, with a chewy pretzel outside. This is what we use for brat buns, but I can see it also being good with hot ham and swiss, a turkey club, brisket sandwich, or of course a burger.
This recipe is from the King Arthur Baking website for pretzel buns. The recipe instructions are for round burger style pretzel buns, but there also directions for making the dough into a roll formed pretzel bread.
We have been using this recipe successfully for quite a while and it is our favorite bread to stuff with a beer brat topped with mustard.
Print Recipe
Pretzel Rolls
Equipment
- large stand mixer
- 6 Quart stock pot
- sheet pan
Ingredients
Pretzel Dough
- 2 tsp Instant yeast
- 1¾ cups Warm water
- 2 tbsp Butter, room temperature
- 3/4 tsp Sea salt
- 4½ cups Bread flour
- 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
Water bath
- 8 cups Water
- 1 tbsp Iodized salt
- 1/4 cup Baking soda
Topping
- Course ground sea salt
Instructions
Step1: Dough
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine yeast and water. Allow a few minutes for it to bloom and foam.
- Add butter, salt, bread flour, and dry milk to the bowl.
- Using the dough hook on low speed, knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until a stretchy dough ball is formed.
- Remove the dough hook, form the dough into a ball, cover the bowl, and allow to rest for 1 hour.
- After the dough has risen, punch down the dough and remove from the bowl.
- Divide the dough into 6 equal dough balls.
- Stretch the dough by hand or with a rolling pin into a 5x5 square.
- Roll the dough into a log shape, pinching the sides and bottom to smooth the creases.
- Place dough rolls onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Cover with a tea towel and allow to rest while preparing the water bath.
Step 2: Water bath
- Before starting the water bath, preheat the oven to 375℉.
- In a 6 quart pot, bring the water, salt and baking soda to a boil.
- Gently drop 2 dough rolls into the pot and boil for 30 seconds, turn, and boil the other side for 30 seconds.
- Remove the rolls with a skimmer or slotted spoon and return to the sheet pan. Continue with the remaining rolls.
- Sprinkle the course sea salt onto the rolls and cut diagonal slits across the top of the rolls. Arrange the rolls on the pan so that they are evenly spaced to prevent them from touching. It is fine if they do, I just prefer them to not touch.
Step 3: Baking
- Place the sheet pan into the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the internal temperature of the roll in the middle of the pan is 190℉. I usually rotate the pan halfway through baking.
- Once the rolls are done, cool on a cooling rack for at least one hour. The pretzel buns are best fresh but are still good for up to 4 days in a plastic bag at room temperature.
