I hope, you all had a good start into the new year!
We spent our new year’s eve very quite with hot tea instead of sparkling wine because I had to fetch a bad cold – but that’s a kind of unforgettable new year’s eve, too 😉
But (and that should proof once again that I’m crazy) I decided to ignore the fever for a while because I can not start a new year without a homebaked new year’s pretzel! And so I take out a leftover sweet starter I kept in the fridge for 5 days. The Starter didn’t mind the time spend in the cold and tripled in size after feeding in only three hours! I then mixed the dough and trusted the sweet starter once again to be enough for a proper rise. The longer time it need to for rising and proofing was perfect for me so I could sleep in between 😉 If you want to speed up the recipe, at a little bit of yeast. Or make half of the recipe of the swiss butter braid instead, which yields a great bread, too.
The pretzel is very delicous, with a soft crust and a fluffy crumb, just the prefect way to welcome 2014!