Hello from Iowa!! Yes. Iowa. Me, a city girl, now in farm country. And I’m LOVING it!! It’s a great break from the norm.
This trip was sponsored by the Iowa Corn Growers Association and it’s basically educating a small number of food bloggers about corn, the farmers, what corn is used for (a TON of things!), and seeing how it’s useful in our lives. I’m doing an entire blog post on my experience when I get back so keep your eyes peeled for that, but if you can’t wait, you should follow along with me as I’m tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming it all! And no, I was not paid by any means to say any of this! They really just genuinely wanted to bring a small group of us out to give us the real deal experience and education.
Okay, on to pretzel bread! I realize this recipe has NOTHING to do with Iowa but it’s carb-loaded and that’s what we all need when we’re working on the farm right?! ;)
So the story behind this is that I made this baguette several weeks ago. It was right after I went to District Commons for happy hour with Claire. I LOVE her, it was the first time we met up after trying for too many months and I swear we have been friends forever. We just were so natural with each other and no awkward moments – except maybe a little bit with our waiter who seemed to hate us – but other than that, dinner was AMAZING and I can’t wait to hang out with Claire again. Also, I want to thank the staff of District Commons for recognizing who we were (food bloggers) and came to say hi and gave us a dessert sampler from the chef. They were delicious and so decadent! I’ve been back numerous times already – one of my favorite spots :)
Anyway, at District Commons, they have this pretzel baguette with mustard butter for $2 as an appetizer. It’s so delicious, soft, fluffy, and perfect. I vowed to recreate it. So I did! And Jason and I could not stop eating it. Thankfully I made two loaves. One definitely wasn’t enough.
You’ll want to smother the mustard butter all over every crevice of the bread. It’s melt in your mouth good.
Pretzel Baguette with Mustard Butter
Yield: 2 large loaves & 1/4 cup mustard butter| Prep Time: 20 minutes plus 1 1/2 hour rise time | Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
For the bread:
1 1/2 cups warm water (110-115 degrees)
2 tsp. active dry yeast
2 tsp. sugar
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. kosher salt
4 tbsp. butter, melted
1/4 cup baking soda
1 whole egg, lightly beaten
Kosher salt for sprinkling (use pretzel salt if you have it)
For the mustard butter:
4 tbsp. butter, room temperature
2 tbsp. grain mustard or stone ground mustard
Instructions:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine water, yeast, and sugar. Stir together and let sit for 5 minutes until foamy.
- Add the flour, salt, and melted butter and combine until ball of dough forms.
- Place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm, draft-free place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- When finished rising, punch down the dough and turn it over onto a lightly floured work surface.
- Line a large baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and set aside.
- Take the dough and form it into two even length loaves.
- Place them side by side (not touching each other though) on the prepared baking sheet.
- Cover with clean kitchen towel and let rise again for 30 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. In a large pasta pot, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil then remove from heat. Gently sprinkle baking soda in and stir to mix. Place back on heat to a low simmer and place one loaf of bread in the poaching liquid for 30 seconds then flip over and poach for another 30 seconds. This will seem difficult to do since the loaves are so long – use two slotted spoons to guide the bread in and out of the pot.
- Place the loaf on the prepared baking sheet and repeat with the other loaf. Take a sharp knife and make slits on the top of the loaves.
- Take the beaten egg and with a pastry brush, brush the tops of the bread, sprinkle with salt, then place in oven and bake for 20-30 minutes. I like the tops of mine extra brown so I left it in there longer. Just watch it so they don’t burn :)
- In the meantime, take your butter and mustard and mix it together in a small bowl and set aside.
- Once bread is done, let it cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes before slicing and spreading butter mustard on top :)
- Store bread in airtight container for up to 5 days, store butter mustard in the fridge, covered, for up to 2 weeks.
Source: pretzel bread recipe adapted from Tasty Kitchen, mustard butter is Table for Two original
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
There was a really good German bakery in LA that did amazing pretzel bread, I’m excited now to recreate it at home with your recipe.
Have fun in Iowa! Corn gets a pretty bad rap these days so really interested to hear about your trip.
I love soft pretzels but have never seen pretzel bread! Looks great.
My mouth is watering, and having a pretzel in a loaf shape is so much better than twists!
yum, I love nothing more than a good hot pretzel with mustard. this looks amazing!
also, I need to try out district commons soon!! have a blast in Iowa; can’t wait to hear all about it!!
Oh my goodness — this looks AMAZING!!! Love the idea of the baguette!
You know I love making homemade bread + this sounds great!
HOLD THE PHONE! I need this STAT!
I LOVE District Commons Pretzel Bread w/ Beer Mustard Butter and I’ve been trying to find a way to replicate! Can’t wait to try this out!
I get SO excited when restaurants serve pretzel bread–yum!!
Hope you are feeling better! I’m always a sucker for bread and now that it’s pretzel bread it has my belly rumbling.
I’m completely done for. MUSTARD BUTTER? Smear me.
Mustard butter? I saw this and just thought… hmm… strange, but it totally works!
Oh my word, I am dying to try this!! I am obsessed with soft pretzels and pretzel bread, and mustard butter on top of it – yes, please!
Soft Pretzels are HUGE here in Philly so there’s Pretzel Bread everywhere! LOVE IT.
Shut the front effin’ door woman!! OMGERD!
Love the styling and love everything! what a fantastic basket! I am so trying this recipe. . yum! love pretzel bread!
I am a carb addict and can only imagine how much I would love to stuff my face with these!
Have fun in Iowa! I am so excited by this recipe and will totally be making it soon. Pretzel bread is the best!!!
I LOVE YOU MORE!!!! I seriously like am obsessed with you.
and yay!! i am so making this. it looks AMAZING.
Yum! I love prestzel bread – yes, I’m a carb addict. And mustard butter is so awesome. I’m so gonna try this recipe. Cool pictures and have fun in Iowa.
oh my..mustard BUTTER. Say no more. Except maybe ‘smeared on a pretzel baguette’ that sounds like heaven. I know whats for dinner this weekend. :)
Oh yum!! I love pretzel rolls, but this is a whole different level of deliciousness!
I want that in my mouth immediately. Next time I’m in DC we’re so going there or you’re making it for me ha ;)
Amazing! I made pretzel bread a couple weeks ago and couldn’t get enough. love this butter! hope you are feeling better!
This look AMAZING!! I’ve made soft pretzels, and pretzel rolls, but a pretzel baguette sounds incredible. Beautiful pictures too :)
I love, love, love your blog and I can’t wait to read more! These pretzels look amazing and the mustard butter sounds divine.
Yummmm I LOVE how crusty this looks! And Mustard Butter?!? I don’t know why I’ve never thought of putting those 2 amazing things together, but it sounds sooo amazing, especially for this bread!
baking bread is scary, so I’ve decided that I’m just going to sneak on over to your house and steal some :)
Iowa! So fun Julie!! I hope you enjoy the whole trip! Mustard butter. OMG. I love mustard in all forms and well… it’s pretty much a given that I love butter too lol. My snack of choice are butter snap pretzels dipped into honey mustard. SO GOOD. And this is essentially the same AMAZING thing. Except more carby and bready. And heavenly. :)
I love pretzel bread, and LOVE this recipe. Thank YOU for sharing! Loving your instagram photos of Iowa :)
That sounds so fun!! :) This pretzel baguette and mustard butter looks wonderful!
these baguettes look incredible! and i love the butter idea! enjoy the country!
Julie, this bread looks amazing! Love the mustard butter.
Pretzels–is there anything they can’t fix? How I loveth them so very much. Seriously, I could eat pretzels every day and never grow tired of their puffy, fat, doughy insides and crispy, golden outsides. Best food ever! This baguette looks redonkulously amazeballs and I need about eight of them to eat rightthissecond. Also, mustard butter? I love you.
I wish I had this bread to snack on right now! It looks so perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside! And what a great idea that mustard butter is!
What an awesome recreation! I’m hosting a celebratory engagement dinner party for Jason’s best friend next week so I’m sure this bread will be making an appearance!
Enjoy Iowa! I’m still adjusting to small town Midwest life…but pretzel bread like this would definitely help :)
This has successfully rocked my world.
NO words.
This looks AMAZING. I’ve never made anything with yeast, because it scares me for some reason, but this! This I want to make IMMEDIATELY! :) And the mustard butter? Yes, please!
Ok so as hard as it might be to believe savory things are more of a weakness for me than sweets… I know… And this. Looks. Like. Madness. I already know I’m going to eat both loaves without sharing. Yep. It’s decided. *swoon*
I’ve enjoyed your Iowa pictures! It looks like a super fun and interesting time. And oh my gosh… this bread! It looks absolutely amazing!
I tried making the mustard butter and had awful luck with it… I actually ended up throwing it out, a half a stick of butter and all that mustard… It wouldn’t come together. The buttered stayed kind of chunky, almost like it was maybe curdling due to the mustard. Not sure what happened. But looks like when I make the bread later tonight or tomorrow, I’ll just be using regular butter with it.
That’s so unfortunate, I’m sorry! Was the butter softened to room temperature? I found that if it was super soft, it was really easy to stir in and combine with the mustard.
[...] wish I had had time to make this Pretzel Baguette with Mustard Butter from Julie at Table for Two to bring along, but it will leave me something to look forward to making when I get [...]
Holy mother! Can we be best friends for life? I need this bread!
I’ve been obsessed with pretzel bread since my last trip Nashville! It is ridiculously good & yours looks amazing!!
First time ever making any kind of pretzel anything and they were GOOD!! Thankfully, I live down the street from family so it was easy to share or else I would have eaten both loaves all by myself in one day! Definitely a recipe to keep on hand! Thank you
Girl this looks awesome! I’m getting into yeast-baking and saw these on the Red Star pins and was like whoa, Julie, you outdid yourself! Repinned!
oooooh. I’m thinking I can use that fish-poacher pan for the baking soda bath…
Can I half this recipe & only make 1 loaf?
Yes!
I found the recipe – read about it on HuffPo just now. Must. Make.
Mustard butter!! That is such a great idea! Also, I used to live in germany and I could barely resist getting a pretzel every time I passed a bakery (if you’ve ever been to Germany you’d know there are bakeries at every street corner). I’ve always wondered how you make them. Don’t need to wonder anymore now!
Made this today for the superbowl, and it was very good. I thought it was a tad salty, even though I forgot to salt the top after the egg wash. It didn’t rise to double in the first hour, which was likely because of the old yeast I used, but that was fine. You don’t have to make mustard butter (especially if you’re trying to save calories), just be sure to pick a mustard you really like.