This week we bring you the fourth edition of the Rustenburg church - Vantage Point's mini series of International Recipes of which several if not all of them will feature at the church's long-awaited International Food Festival on Friday, 27 May 2016. Vantage Point is situated some 2 km from the Waterfall Mall on the R24 from Rustenburg. At the Food festival which starts at 17:30 - guests will have the opportunity to taste a variety of international recipes and dishes (small portions) at only R15 per serving. This is to allow you to enjoy as many different tastes as you could manage which, inter alia, is all intended to get the crowds to mingle and spread the message...
This week Rustenburg Herald's cooking page features Bruno Herrmann and his girlfriend - Sonja Mohr - a young "German" couple who entertains us with traditional German pretzels - a well-known European delicatessen. Bruno is somewhat of a cross-breed between a German with South African blood or vice versa. Bruno grew up in Rustenburg and Kroondal and spent a gap year in Germany after his matric year. This is where he discovered his love for German baking traditions and learned to prepare pretzels the traditional way. Bruno also completed a diploma course in German baking at the International Baking Adacemy and can tell you a thing or two about the art of German baking. "Among all the other things we learned to bake, pretzels where my favourite. This is why I get excited over every opportunity to bake pretzels, like now to do marketing for the Food festival". So - it's pretzels...
Lye pretzels
Ingredients:
· 500 g Bread flour
· 1 Tablespoon salt
· 20 g Yeast
· 200 ml water
Lye solution:
· 100g Sodium hydroxide (from pharmacy or grocery store)
· 3 L lukewarm water
Method:
Preheat oven to 240 °C. Mix flour, salt, yeast and water together to form a tough dough. Allow the dough to rest. Divide dough into pieces 65 – 100 g pieces and shape the pretzels. Cool, in order for the pretzels to keep their shape and to prevent uptake of excessive sodium hydroxide. Prepare the lye solution ensuring that the sodium hydroxide is dissolved completely. Take care when working with Sodium hydroxide. Place a sheet of baking paper onto a baking tray. Dip the pretzels into the lye solution, ensuring that they are covered completely. Place on baking paper. Make a cut into the fat part of the pretzel (this will allow the pretzel to rise). Sprinkle with coarse sea salt before placing in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes, remove from oven, allow to cool and enjoy!
