German Soft Sweet Pretzel Recipe (vegan)
This authentic German soft-baked Sweet Pretzel Recipe is a fun homemade appetizer, dessert, or snack! These German pretzels are sweet and deliciously buttery while being entirely dairy-free and vegan. All you need to make them is just 8 pantry-friendly ingredients. They are so cute, delicious, and comforting.
Servings: 8 pretzel
Equipment
- Electric mixer with dough hook attachment or knead by hand; Bowl for resting the dough; Bowl cover or kitchen towel, Baking tray
Ingredients
Sweet pretzel dough
- 1 cup lukewarm plant milk, such as almond milk (250ml)
- 2 teaspoon active dry yeast (7g)
- 3.5 ounces vegan butter (100g)
- 3.5 ounces organic cane sugar (100g)
- 1 pinch of salt
- 17.6 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour (500g)
Sugar coating
- 2 tablespoons melted vegan butter (30g)
- 4 tablespoons organic cane sugar (50g)
- 4 teaspoon of vanilla sugar, or 2 packets (16g)
Instructions
- Whisk lukewarm plant milk with active dry yeast until combined. Let sit for 5 minutes to bloom. Melt the butter. Put the flour, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl and combine.
- With an electric mixer and the dough hook attached add milk-yeast-mix and melted butter while running it on low speed. Once ingredients form into a dough ball increase speed. Knead everything for 10 minutes until a uniform, smooth dough is formed. (You can also knead the dough by hand if wished) Roll into a ball shape and add to a lightly greased wooden, glass or plastic bowl. Cover the dough and let rise in a warm, non-drafty place, until doubled in size. It takes around 1 hour. I prefer putting it to rise into the oven with the light on for warmth, but don’t turn the oven on.
- Once it has risen divide the dough into 8 equal pieces of ca. 110-120g each. Form the dough pieces into long sausages (approx. 60cm / 24 inches), leaving the middle thicker and thinning out towards the outside. The thick part forms the belly of the pretzel at the bottom. The thin strands are joined together at the top to form the typical pretzel circle. Any overlapping dough that remains at the top is folded in towards the belly. Twist the two 2 strands of dough around each other 2 times, then tuck them over the belly of the pretzel. It’s best to form the pretzels directly on the place of the baking tray, so you don’t have to transfer them again.
- Now they need time to rise again (about 45 minutes to 1 hour). Brush lightly with a little biting water, or melted butter to prevent them from drying out. Cover them with plastic or a lightly damp kitchen towel and keep them in a warm place.
- Preheat the oven to 230°C / 440°F (bottom/top heat). Do not use the hot air option, since it tends to dry the pretzels.
- Bake on the middle shelf for around 10-12 minutes. While they are baking mix cane sugar with the vanilla sugar on a large flat plate. Optional step: Run the cane sugar through the food processor for extra fine sugar before mixing it with vanilla sugar. Brush the warm pretzels with melted plant butter and dip them directly into the sugar mixture. Be careful not to burn your hands, let them cool a bit before doing that!