Camp Soft Pretzels
Yeast dough mixed at home, boiled in baking soda water and baked in a dutch oven over coals.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 116
- protein
- 12 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 45 min
- water
- 1500 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Snack
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 2 1/2 cups | Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 gluten-free flour works in equal measure |
|---|---|---|
| Oat flour | 1/2 cup | |
| Active dry yeast | 2 1/4 tsp | one packet |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Honey | 1 tbsp | in a squeeze tube |
| Olive oil | 3 tbsp | two for the dough, one for greasing and brushing |
| Warm water | 1 cup | for the dough |
| Baking soda | 1/4 cup | for the boiling bath |
| Water | 6 cups | for the boiling bath |
| Kosher salt | 1 tbsp | for the tops |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down. You want coals, not flame, and you want them an hour before you want pretzels.
- Warm 1 cup of water until it is barely above body temperature. Too hot kills the yeast. Stir in the honey and the yeast and leave it five minutes until it foams.
- Add the flour bag and 2 tbsp of olive oil. Mix in the pot, then knead in the pot for five minutes until the dough stops sticking to your hands.
- Cover the pot and set it somewhere warm for 45 minutes. On a cold morning, put it in the sun or near the fire ring, not on it.
- Divide into eight pieces. Roll each into a rope and twist it, or just tie it in a knot. Shape matters less than thickness: thin ropes cook evenly.
- Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a second pot and stir in the baking soda. It will foam over if you dump it in fast.
- Boil each pretzel 30 seconds a side, then lift it out with a spoon and let it drip.
- Oil the dutch oven, lay in the pretzels with room between them, brush the tops with oil and scatter kosher salt.
- Lid on. Bake with coals underneath and a full layer on the lid, roughly 20 to 25 minutes, until deep brown. Rotate the oven a quarter turn every five minutes so one side does not scorch.
The baking soda bath is the whole recipe. Thirty seconds in alkaline water gelatinizes the surface starch, which is what gives a pretzel its brown skin and its chew. Skip it and you have baked bread in a knot.
Butter and the egg wash both went in the trash for trail purposes: neither survives a cooler-free weekend, and olive oil does the same job in the dough and on the crust. The rise is the real cost here, not the bake. Mix the dough when you get to camp, go do something else for an hour, and come back when the coals are grey.
Packing
Combine both flours, yeast, and salt in one zip bag at home. Baking soda goes in its own small bag, kosher salt in another. Honey and oil ride in squeeze bottles.
Variations
- Skip the twisting and cut the ropes into inch-long bites. Same boil, ten minutes less in the oven.
- Cinnamon sugar instead of kosher salt, brushed with oil after baking rather than before.
- No dutch oven: boil the pretzels, then cook them flat in an oiled skillet over low coals, lid on, flipping once.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/recipe-easy-homemade-pretzels