Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Reformation Dinner

Last week was October 31st -- for most Americans the celebration of Halloween. It was also the 495th anniversary of Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, and we celebrated with an appropriate dinner. (And by not giving out any candy. We are lazy, and often tired.)

The star of the meal were the Laugenbrezeln, a kind of German pretzel roll. The "Laugen" denotes that they are blanched in a lye mixture, as opposed to, well, any other type of pretzel. This gives the finished pretzel its signature dark, crispy crust, and that slightly-sour pretzel flavor. FORTUNATELY, through the magic of modern science, there is a recipe to manage these rolls using baking soda instead. This recipe is from Under My Knife, the blog of an intern at America's Test Kitchen.

You make a fairly basic dough (a bit drier than most), then let it rise. Then you form your pretzel shapes and put these in the fridge to chill, which is supposed to make them hold their shape better during the blanching. (We did not do the full hour called for.) The blanching is kind of scary, messy, and time-consuming. You mix baking soda in a pot of water on the stove (not quite at a boil), and drop in each roll for a few seconds. The mixture leaves white residue on the pot, which comes off easily, but is still a little unnerving. However, this step is absolutely essential for that lovely crust and flavor.

For protein, we got a nice big sausage and fried it up on the stove. The sausage and rolls went well with some spicy mustard. We also made roesti, which are like Swiss hashbrowns. In New Glarus -- America's Little Switzerland -- roesti came with pretty much every meal. It's just shredded potatoes, dried out and chilled with a little oil. Then you mix in some strongly flavored cheese and fry them like hashbrowns or latkes. Everything was served up with some plain applesauce.

For afters? German Chocolate Cake, of course. This recipe is from our Betty Crocker Cookbook. It's called something like, The Betty Crocker Cookbook. That's pretty close, that least. We were very, very, VERY careful to follow high-altitude baking adjustments. Cake has been our big baking failure so far. (Although, our new cake pans might also help. Maybe you're not supposed to make cake in Corningware?)

The recipe is meant to make three layers, but we only had two pans, so we made a few cupcakes that Joe brought to school. The frosting is a simple chocolate butter cream. Excessive frosting is unnecessary on this cake. It uses melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder, so it has amazing flavor and texture.

I think Katie would be proud.