Happy New Year to all! This will be a relatively short article because all the tips and tricks were so important they’ve ended up in the recipe itself. Twenty of them! More or less. There isn’t a lot for me to add.
NOTE FROM KATE: This would be an absolutely wicked technical bake if they ever appear in the Great British Baking Show a/k/a Bakeoff! With their even, delightfully puffed-up loops toasted golden and their intriguing crunch, they are well worth the learning curve.
Here’s the bottom line: Kringla look exactly like a salted pretzel and have soft middles right after baking. From Day 2 on, they turn into an extremely light, ultra-crisp, crunchy sugar “cookie” with moderate sweetness and an innocent flavor that no one can dislike.
Click here to skip the (brief) discussion and go directly to the recipe
Yes, Hartshorn Makes A Difference
Kringle sorta-kinda work with baking powder or soda, but they turn into something special when you use baker’s ammonia a/k/a hartshorn instead. The texture changes from (A) absurdly puffy when fresh and a little tough as they age, into (B) puffy with a pleasant, crispy crust when fresh and wonderfully crunchy as they age. See this article for the underlying reasons. We can’t say they aren’t worth making if you use the more common leavening agents. The illusion still works, and there’s nothing wrong with the flavor. But they will definitely be better if you make them with hartshorn.
Shaping Pretzels Is A P.I.T.A. – If You Are Me
Kate had almost no problems, because she’s an artist with a good 3-D imagination. I end up staring at the darned things and trying to remember, “Was it one twist or two? And then the ends go where…?”
It’s all covered in the recipe itself, but aside from native talent (or lack thereof), the shaping hurdles are all pretty basic and built into the nature of the cookie:
- It’s a very soft and sticky dough. But everything will work out fine if you roll each piece in flour before forming, and work with floured fingers.
- Move the rolled out “snakes” onto your parchment before turning them into pretzel shapes. They’re so soft that scooping and moving will inevitably distort your work.
- Use very skinny “snakes” and leave a huge amount of room in the loops – enough that they look sort of scrawny and pathetic before they hit the oven. Kringla expand by at least 400% percent as they bake, meaning each of those little arms will end up being four times (4x) as thick by the time they are done. Rest assured: all that empty space will vanish.
- Keep the pretzels far apart on the trays for the same reason.
NOTE FROM KATE: If you’ve never made a pretzel, I recommend practicing with a piece of thick twine or shoe string. You will want to make a single shape while using up the entire length of 8- 10″. Try various shapes, and try to join the rope under an existing loop. If you can’t, pinch the dough together so that it’s the same thickness everywhere (Thinner portions will darken too much.) The final product is as solid as the dough is fussy. This dough would be suitable for making hearts, flowers, linear animal shapes, or whatever else you fancy.
The Final Touch Decorations Are Easy, But Have Some Sneaky Hazards
Kringla taste perfectly fine. They are friendly, inoffensive, mildly sweet, and basically pleasant to one and all. For a stronger impression, add more freshly ground nutmeg or cardamom. For an even safer flavor, add some extra lemon zest. Either way, this cookie isn’t really about the flavor. It’s the shape that makes them special. The shape, and the illusion of being a salted pretzel instead of a sweet treat.
NOTE FROM KATE: I could be wrong on this, but I perceive hartshorn-leavened cookies as less flavorful than their baking soda/baking powder equivalents. So far we aren’t sure whether it’s just me, or because the extra puff essentially dilutes the spice level per bite. Adjust spice level as you see fit.
That salted pretzel illusion comes from brushing the pretzels with melted butter and then sprinkling the tops with pearl sugar to imitate the salt. The recipe goes over it all in detail, but that process has two basic challenges to overcome. (A) The dough is so soft that brushing it with melted butter can distort those shapes you just spent so much work on; and (B), the oven temperature is hot enough to melt any loose sugar crystals, which can lead to black caramel tainting the bottom of your cookies.
You can fix both problems by baking the pretzels until they are almost done, pulling them out of the oven to be decorated, and then returning them to the oven to finish. That, alas, is both fussy and time consuming. Thus it makes sense to brush and decorate before baking… which means you need to compensate for those two problems.
There is no concrete, surefire answer. It’s just one of those things you need to know about, and do what you can to prevent. See the recipe for various tips, tricks, and hacks you might want to use.
The Pretzel Bottoms Try To Get Out Of Control
Start with an extremely light dough, rolled very thin, and heavily leavened so it will expand by four or even five times in the oven. Add in a very hot oven to brown the top and provide extra crispness to the crust.
What do you get? A cookie that can easily burn on the bottom before the tops are done, even without factoring in any caramel from melted sugar.
Knowing the problem gets you about 50% of the way toward fixing it. Again, please consult the recipe for our tips, tricks, and hacks to forestall that. But I may as well close this article by listing them here as well, because several are very clever if I do say so myself:
- You can bake one sheet at a time, on a middle or upper rack of the oven. Oven heat comes from the bottom and collects toward the top, so this will make sure you have consistent air flow while maximizing the heat around your crust rather than on your bottoms. Just remember that one sheet in the oven tends to cook faster than two.
- You can use the convection setting on your oven to achieve the same effect. Just remember to turn the oven down by 25° F (about 15° C).
- If you use two pans, remember to rotate them halfway through. Bottom to top, while also spinning them back to front.
- You can insulate the cookie bottoms by using a silicone mat instead of parchment paper.
- You can also insulate the bottoms by using a doubled baking tray.
NOTE FROM KATE: We have a convection oven but we seldom turn the fan on because all our Volume 1 recipes started out in a previous one. Keeping a traditional oven setting helps us compare new recipes connected to our older bakes. If you use a convection oven, reduce the temperature by 25°F and keep an eye on your bake time. Every oven is different.
Conclusion
Please don’t let all the nits and notes discourage you from trying this fun and culturally important little cookie. Yes there are hurdles, but they’re more in the nature of “heads up” warnings about pitfalls to be avoided. They aren’t actual barriers, let alone walls, and the rewards are more than worth the effort. Kringla are fun! Just look at them:
Enjoy!
