A favorite is ham and cheese on a pretzel bun... so let's make some pretzel buns.
THE BACK STORY
I am sucker for a sandwich with a good pretzel bun. I have never tried to make them until now. The dough is made from bread flour, salt, water, and yeast. But to get the characteristic pretzel color and crunch/crisp, a salt and baking soda quick bath is needed. Two rises are needed, the first is about an hour or until doubled in size. The second is after the water bath and is only 15 minutes. All-in, you can have 10 pretzel buns in about 2 hours.
THE BAke
I used the Pretzel Bun recipe from King Arthur Baking. The recipe works for my bread machine friends as well. I got to use my Bread Flour and Baker's Special Dry Milk. If you don't have Baker's Special Dry Milk you can substitute nonfat dry milk. Things were humming along except for when it came time to dunk the buns. It seemed to take forever for the water bath to boil. When you are dunking the buns, make sure no more than 30 seconds on each side. For the topping you can use pretzel salt, coarse sea salt like Sel Gris, or if you have neither of those like me, use kosher salt.
THE RESULT
They tasted yummy! Best of all they were perfect for holiday ham and cheese sandwiches. They take half the time of other breads and rolls I've made. The dough can be used to make long buns perfect for sausages or hamburger buns by adjusting how you divide it up after the first rise. I topped mine with kosher salt but you can use a pretzel or coarse salt like Sel Gris.
WILL I MAKE IT AGAIN
Yup! I already made a second batch!
