New year Pretzels - NeujahrsPretzel

    As the name implies, this Pretzel is one of the special dishes in New years menu and is consumed across Europe, with Germany as special mention.  This Pretzel is unique, as it is not eaten as plain, but with an sugary glaze followed by nuts and cherries.  They are also believed to lead luck and prosperity throughout the year.

I made an eggless version of the suggested recipe, and glammed up with icing sugar glaze, followed by sprinklers.  They were very delecious, when had warm and kids friendly too.  All thanks to Swathi and Swetha for suggesting this wonderful recipe.  

You can also dust them with icing sugar instead of glaze and decorate with nuts/cherries.  So, let us now follow the recipe of this eggless new year pretzels.  

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 15-20 minutes each batch
Yield: 4

Ingredients required

• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 2 tbspn sugar
• 2 tbspn unsalted butter
• 2 cups All purpose flour
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tbspn warm water
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar

For glaze

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence
• Few drops of water
• Sprinklers, as needed

Method

In an bowl, mix first three ingredients, keep aside.  Mix yeast with sugar and water, let it stay till it is frothy.  In an deep bowl, add flour along with salt.   

Make an well and add yeast mixture followed by milk-butter-sugar combo.  

Mix and knead them till you get an soft, pliable dough.  

Transfer this to oil greased bowl and cling wrap them for the first rise.  Since temperature was falling at my place, I rested them overnight.  

Next day morning, dough rised as double, I kneaded them and divided into four equal balls.  

Each ball, I rolled them into very thin cylinder.  

This thin cylinder was placed like an horse-shoe magnet.  I placed one arm over the another, and repeated them (as in third pic) to resemble a knot.  This knot was turned over the base, to resemble like below pic.

This was closed by wet cloth, and allowed for second rise. 

After second rise, which took about 4-5 hours, and simultaneously preheated the oven to 180 degree celsius,  I baked them for 15-20 minutes.  Mix in the glaze and pour over the baked pretzels and top them with sprinklers.

Enjoy with your evening tea.  Happy baking :)

Linking this to Baking partners challenge hosted by Swathi Iyer.