Dijon Stout Soft Pretzels

Looking for unique GameDay food for your Super Bowl party? These Dijon Stout Soft Pretzels are a showstopper! Beer and mustard are the quintessential flavors to pair with pretzels. Why not put those flavors IN the pretzels?! 

This article was originally published in the January 2015 Edition of VRAI Magazine. 

My creativity in baking has always come through classic techniques. Once I become confident with the basics I feel free to experiment and push the boundaries. With “the big game” fast approaching I was inspired to take the iconic flavors of game day food and reinvent them.

 I love to present common flavor combinations in a modern way. It is my way of appealing to the desire for what is familiar while still exciting the palette with a new experience. Classic foods and combinations are the perfect starting point for reinvention and to let your creativity flow!

When I first started learning to bake I was highly intimidated to deviate from the recipe. I knew baking was science and therefore I thought I needed to follow the recipe exactly or it would be a complete disaster.

And when I did start getting a little more daring, sometimes it was a disaster. But sometimes it wasn’t. And with either outcome, I always learned something.

One of my first successes in deviating from a recipe was with my Dark Chocolate Cayenne Banana Bread. I remember thinking that I loved the flavor combination of chocolate and cayenne and I also loved the flavor combination of chocolate and banana (I mean, obviously). So I decided to put the three together without a recipe road map.

It sounds so simple to me now because I literally just added cocoa powder, chocolate chips, and cayenne pepper to a banana bread. But at the time this was a huge step for me and it opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities for recipe reinvention.

For the Super Bowl this year I really wanted to create at least one unique game day recipe. I wanted to take some classic flavors and present them in a new and interesting way.

I decided that soft pretzels were a good canvas. And in my mind there isn’t much better in this world than a soft pretzel with some grainy mustard and a good beer.

My mouth is salivating just writing that. So I decided that I would incorporate the beer and mustard INTO the pretzel. And it worked! Each bite is that beer/pretzel/mustard experience all at once. It is everything reinvented game day food should be!

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Yield: 16 Pretzels

Dijon Stout Soft Pretzels

Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes

These Dijon Stout Soft Pretzels are a showstopper! Beer and mustard are the quintessential flavors to pair with pretzels. Why not put those flavors IN the pretzels?! 

Ingredients

• 12 oz bottle of Guinness or other Stout Beer (warm, about 110-120F)
• 1 TBSP granulated sugar
• 2 TBSP brown sugar
• 1 package (1/4 oz, 21/4 tsp) active dry yeast
• 4 3/4 cups bread flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 TBSP dijon mustard
• 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) melted butter, slightly cooled
• 6 cups water
• 1/2 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg white
• 1 TBSP grainy or dijon mustard
• coarse sea salt

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the warm beer and sugar. Sprinkle the yeast over top and let it sit for about 5 minutes until bubbly. This is how you know the yeast is active.
2. With the dough hook attached add the flour, salt, mustard, and melted butter and mix on low until all of the ingredients are combined. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl. Increase the speed to medium and let the dough mix/knead for about 5 minutes until it becomes smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
3. Place the dough in a large greased bowl, turn the dough over to make sure both sides get greased, and cover it with plastic wrap or a clean towel. Let it proof in a warm place in the kitchen for 1 hour, until doubled in size.
4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450F and line two sheet trays with parchment paper and spray the parchment lightly with pan spray. Position the oven racks in the middle two positions in the oven.
5. Also, prepare the poaching liquid. Combine the water and baking soda in a wide but shallow pot (if you have a deeper pot you may need to double the amounts) and place over medium heat. Allow the liquid to come to a simmer while you shape the dough.
6. On a clean and unfloured work surface (flour will make these difficult to shape!) turn the dough out and divide into 12 equal pieces.
7. To shape the pretzels apply even pressure to roll out each piece of dough into about an 18 inch rope. Fold each rope in half, then twist the two pieces around one another and press the ends together. Fold the twist in half again and press the bottom and the top together forming an oval twist. Place the twists on the cookie sheet. Keep the pieces of unshaped dough loosely covered with plastic wrap while you work with each piece so that they do not dry out.
8. One by one carefully slide the shaped pretzels into the simmering poaching liquid for about 30 seconds then remove with a slotted spoon back to the cookie sheet.
9. Whisk together the egg whites and the mustard and brush over top of the pretzels. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
10. Bake at 450F for about 14-15 minutes, until golden brown. Rotate your pans halfway through baking. You want to rotate both from top to bottom and also turn to rotate the pans from front to back.