Appears in Cook's Illustrated September/October 2022
Making pretzels the way German bakers do combines science and arts and crafts with a frisson of (manageable) risk. The process is fun; the payoff is spectacular.
For pretzels that were sturdy and chewy, we started with bread flour, which contains more gluten-forming proteins than all-purpose flour, and we added just enough water to make a malleable dough that would stick to itself when knotted. Roll...