If there is any German baked good that goes well with beer, it must be the Brezel (or Brezn' as the Bavarian says). The Brezel is part of a group of baked goods called Laugengebäck (lye bread) in Germany where you find many different shapes. I'm in particular a fan of the Laugenbrötchen (lye roll). Here I want to share how to make them at home.

The recipe that is used here comes from PDF document written for professional German bakers which I happened to come across on the internet [Ulmer Spatz]. I'm using the recipe for the Bavarian Breze scaled down from the 10,000 kg version.

This is what you need for the dough. Like many professional bread recipes it is completely weight based (except for the yeast):

(*) if you don't have dry malt extract use 10g table sugar instead

Figure 1 - weigh the ingredients. You don't have weigh them in separate containers as shown here. I tend to weigh them while adding them to the mixing bowl

Figure 2 - Using a powerful kitchen mixer kneed the dough for 10 min until smooth. You'll notice that Brezel dough is stiffer than normal bread or pizza dough. That makes the resulting bread denser but working with it much harder

Figure 3 - Once the dough has been kneaded let it rest for a few minutes before portioning. When making Brezels I don't want the dough to rise as it is more difficult to roll the necessary long strands if the dough has risen. To ensure evenly sizes Brezels and rolls I aim for about 70-80 g (2.4 - 2.5 oz) per dough ball. You may use more or less depending on the desired Brezel size

References

[Ulmer Spatz] Backforum Bingen, Herstellung von Laugengebäcken, BIB-Ulmer Spatz