Making pretzels the way German bakers do combines science and arts and crafts with a frisson of (manageable) risk. The process is fun; the payoff is spectacular. For pretzels that were sturdy and chewy, we started with bread flour, which contains more gluten-forming proteins than all-purpose flour, and we added just enough water to make a malleable dough that would stick to itself when knotted. Rolling out each portion of dough with a rolling pin removed most air bubbles, ensuring that the crumb would be even and fine. We shaped the pretzels in stages, giving the dough short rests to keep the gluten relaxed so that our pretzels would remain large and elegant instead of small and chunky. A quick dip in either a room-temperature lye solution or a simmering baking soda solution accelerated the Maillard reaction, breaking up proteins on the surface of the pretzel so that they interacted more readily with sugars for quick and deep browning during the brief, hot bake.
