Pretzel

Pretzels are made in two ways: large, soft pretzels and the hard, crisp pretzel. The soft pretzel is perishable and must be sold as a fresh-baked item or as a frozen food.

The properties of hard pretzels made by using flours with different protein contents indicated that hard wheat flour would produce a harder pretzel but would not affect the surface color of final product.

Pretzels come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from sticks, called “thins,” to rings and hard, thick, saltless, teething pretzels, called “Bavarians” or “Baldies”. These treats are great with cheese or other dips or just by themselves.

The structural integrity of pretzels is compromised if the gluten functionality or the starch. Pretzel formulations can include either a chemical or yeast as the leavening agents.

Flour is the major, and the most important, ingredient governing the functional properties of pretzels. The pretzel production process includes dough mixing, forming/shaping using an extruder at low pressure, cooking in a hot alkali solution, and baking.
Pretzel