Sourdough Vanilla Pretzels Russian Style - Sushki

Ingredients:

70 g active white sourdough starter

80 g raw honey

1 egg

50 ml raw milk

50 g butter (melted)

1,5 tsp vanilla extract

325 g white all purpose organic flour

½ tsp sea salt

Equipment:

Mixing bowl

Plastic Wrap

Baking sheet and parchment baking paper

Medium pot for boiling

Water, preferably filtered

Big plate and kitchen towels or tea towel

dough cutter/bench scraper or chef’s knife

skimmer or large spoon with holes

Instructions:

Mix everything together to form soft dough, knead it for 5 minutes. Leave it in a bowl covered with cling film overnight or at least for 8 hours to ferment.

Next day the dough will be slightly oily and soft. Divide the dough into 6 parts, leave 5 aside covered with cling film and roll 1 part of the dough between your hands into a sausage approximately 3 cm thick. Then using chef’s knife or dough cutter/bench scraper cut the sausage into small parts ½ cm thick.

Without using additional flour roll each small piece between your hands or on the kitchen surface with one hand to form a long and thin rope, pick it up and connect two ends to form a ring and roll them together a little bit between your fingers so  they stick together and do not come apart. Leave the ring aside on the kitchen counter. Repeat the same with all the ropes.

Somewhere half way through the rolling process fill half a medium pan with preferably filtered water and bring the water to boil. At the same time heat the oven to 200 °C.

Putting around 10 at a time, boil the rings in the water for 30 seconds, they need to float to the surface of the water. Fish them out with skimmer or large spoon with holes. Place the boiled rings onto a large plate lined with a kitchen towel or a tea towel to absorb the water from the rings.   

After you done, throw another batch of rings into boiling water. While they are boiling, place the drained rings onto the baking parchment lined baking sheet, place the rings half a cm apart as they will slightly expand and stick together if placed too close to each other. Fish out the next batch of rings onto the plate to drain and throw the next, continue till all done. 

When the baking sheet is full place into the heated oven and bake for around 15 min checking every 7 minutes or so and turning the sheet if necessary. The rings should be golden brown, but do not worry if you burn a few they are still really tasty.

While the rings are in the oven, make more rings from the next piece of dough and continue until all done.

They are really good on their own or dipping into jam and washing with raw organic milk.