Hey there! Welcome back to ‘The Confessions of a Random Blogger!’
If you don’t already know, this is ‘The Modern Day Julie/Julia Project,’ a continuing series here where I document my experience of learning how to cook. Now, this series actually started back in July of last year, when I still thought that I would be going to an actual college and not getting my undergraduate degree from a talking laptop screen.
I thought that I would have that typical college experience you see in the movies; filled with independence, all the while having to know how to cook.
However, once again, that just isn’t happening. I do online classes from my bedroom, where my mom will periodically bring me heaps of food.
Technically, I genuinely don’t need to know how to cook at the moment. However, the only thing that is still somewhat motivating me to continue learning is the promise of periodic blog content!
As the one year deadline I set for myself inches closer and closer, I decided to step the difficulty level up a notch. Therefore, today we’re going to be making pretzels.
Bread is notoriously extremely difficult to make. Now, before we get started I’d like to get your insight about something.
What is yeast exactly? Like I know that it’s the thing that makes bread rise…but what is it? Is dry yeast somehow different from regular yeast? Is there some sort of wet yeast hybrid that I don’t know about? Why does it smell like that?
Okay the yeast rant is over. Let’s get started!
You can check out the original recipe I followed here.
No offence to the original recipe, but literally every single step of the process was littered with frustration and the overarching stench of lingering yeast (WHAT IS IT?).
For the most part, the preparation of the dough wasn’t that tedious of a process.
However, even after about an hour and a half, the dough simply didn’t rise. Even worse- it wasn’t even dough. It was some sort of liquidy play-dough type situation.
So I quickly went online and found a website that said that adding extra flour could improve the runny texture.
So I added a tablespoon of flour.
And then another. And then another. Read that over and over again around thirty times.
At this point I had been in the kitchen for almost 3 hours. I simply didn’t even attempt to make the classic pretzel shape we’re all so used to.
Don’t get it twisted, I would’ve tried if I thought I would be able to.
Also, get it? Twisted– like a pretzel!
Okay I’ll stop now.
So I literally just grabbed the dough (it doesn’t even feel right to call it dough) carved it into several stick like shapes and threw them into boiling water.
That’s right. You’re supposed to boil pretzels. Did you know that!?
Throwing liquid into boiling water isn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made. I don’t even want to talk about it. At least until the burns heal.
I then placed my misshapen, differently sized pretzel imposters onto a baking sheet and threw them into the oven for 15 minutes.
This is how they turned out:
Although they didn’t taste terrible, the whole experience was enough for me to swear off making pretzels for the rest of my life!
Thank you for reading! What should I cook next? Comment some recommendations in the comments! I promise I’ll take the next one a little more seriously.
You can check out the last few instalments of The Modern Day Julie/Julia Project here:
The Modern Day Julie/Julia Project- Sincronizada
The Modern Day Julie/Julia Project- Cake Catastrophe!
The Modern Day Julie/Julia Project- 5 Ways To Cook Eggs
The Modern Day Julie/Julia Project- The Microwave Diaries
Until Next Time.
theconfessionsofarandomblogger.com 
Working with yeast the first few times is always tricky. The regular yeast that we get in the local kirana stores in India is active dry yeast which is the one they’ve used in the recipe. There is also instant yeast which doesn’t need to be activated separately in warm water and can be mixed directly in the dough. There are 2-3 other types of yeast as well but they aren’t that commonly founds in India.
I know you said you don’t want advice but I find that following Indian bakers on ‘yeasty’ recipes work better for me because yeasty doughs depend on the type of flour and general room temperature to come out well.
Recipe idea – make puff pastry and use it to make patties or dessert or a pie.
Recipe –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVdA5CxYUGQ (Preppy Kitchen on Youtube)
It is a fairly easy recipe and would work better on a cooler day since it involves a lot of butter.
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Haha advice is always appreciated! I was probably still a bit tired from all the cooking when I wrote that. I’ll definitely add puff pastry to the list of things to learn how to cook! Thank you for the insight!
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