Baked not grilled

The oven's fixed so time to give it another go! Minor changes to the recipe this time around, but they are only slight changes.

Pretzels (Take II)

Ingredients

• 400g Strong flour
• 1 sachet Fast-acting yeast
• 1.5tsp Salt
• 150ml Water
• 100ml Milk
• Coarse salt
• ~3tsp Bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Mix the flour, yeast, salt, water and milk in a bowl and form a dough.
2. Knead the dough for ~20 minutes and leave to rise until doubled in size, covered.
3. Gently press the air out and knead the dough for ~10 minutes more.
4. Divide into 4 equal portions. and leave for ~45mins to prove.
5. Roll each portion out into a sausage shape, roughly 50cm long then shape into pretzel shapes.
6. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Boil the pretzels individually for about a minute, then remove to a paper towel to dry.
7. Oil a baking sheet well.
8. Make a solution of bicarbonate of soda in a mugful of water. Dip each pretzel in the solution, sprinkle with the coarse salt and place on a well-oiled baking sheet.
9. Bake at 190C for 20-25 mins until dark golden brown.
10. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Here are the newly shaped pretzels (end of step 5).
After boiling (end of step 6).And the finished product! What a difference an oven makes. Oh my word though, they look good!I should probably confess that the photos are very slightly disingenuous - the pretzels baked on a roasting tray stuck like crazy and I left the bottom layer on the tin. But the one baked on a non-stick tray posed no such problems. But man, don't those look good?!