Tricky but delicious: how to make the perfect pretzels

My husband is obsessed with pretzels. The joy that a slightly warm, soft baked pretzel brings him is disproportionate. And, unlike in Germany and the States, where soft pretzels are ubiquitous, they are hard to come by here. So, for a while I have been trying to perfect the pretzel. It has not been smooth sailing.

Pretzels are tricky: as well as being made from bread dough, and therefore yeasted, they are boiled before baking, have a very distinctive flavour, and their shaping requires a certain knack. Getting them right was a labour of love. But now I’ve cracked it, which means you should be able to avoid my pitfalls. I bake a lot, but the pride I felt when I removed my latest batch from the oven – mahogany gloss on the outside, pale and chewy within – was unparalleled.

The origins of pretzels are not certain – possibly they came to us from Christian monks, and they certainly became associated with both Lent and Easter – but they have been part of German baking traditions for centuries. Pennsylvanian Dutch immigrants introduced them to the US in the late 18th century and they spread across the country.

The most classic pretzel is made from a simple, yeasted bread dough, shaped into a knot, and flavoured simply with coarse salt on the top. The magic is in the contrast between the almost tangy roasty-toastiness of the dark brown crust, and the pale soft interior; a pretzel should be chewy inside and out. This is traditionally achieved by bathing it in lye after shaping and before baking.

Lye is sodium hydroxide, and a strong alkali, which alters the pH of the outside of the pretzel. But it is also corrosive and dangerous to breathe in.