Whole Wheat Pretzels
Whole Wheat Pretzels made with 100% whole wheat flour! They’re fluffy and delicious, and coated with cinnamon sugar.
Every time I post a bread recipe on Fifteen Spatulas, I almost inevitably get at least one person asking me this:
“Can I make this bread with whole wheat flour instead of white?”
Oh how this question would pain me, because I would have to break the bad news.
You see, you can’t just swap the two whenever you want, and expect the same results.
The reason it doesn’t work is because whole wheat flour has significantly less protein than white flour, which means less gluten-developing ability. Which is why even for my Homemade Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns, we use a mix of both flours.
For recipes like Whole Wheat Pancakes or The Very Best Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies made with whole wheat, it doesn’t matter since we don’t want to develop gluten.
But with bread, gluten is practically everything. It’s why we spend 10 minutes working that dough, so we can develop a big strong web of gluten-rich dough that can hold in the gas bubbles that the yeast make, and give the dough rise.
Translation: Without gluten, bread would be heavy and dense, instead of light and fluffy. The yeast would be producing its gas bubbles, but there would be nothing to catch and hold those gas bubbles in.
One of the most popular recipes on Fifteen Spatulas (and one of my personal LOVES) is Hot Buttered Fluffy Pretzels, and well, apparently today is my happy day because now if someone asks me, “Joanne, can I use whole wheat flour instead of white flour for this recipe?” I can say….YES!!!! Thanks to some super magical yeast =)
This super magical yeast I used is this Platinum Superior Baking Yeast. It has dough enhancers that strengthen the dough, and give the bread more rise and oven spring. The minute I got my hands on some of this yeast, I knew I had to test out the Hot Buttered Fluffy Pretzels…made with 100% Whole Wheat Flour.
It turned out to be a total kitchen success. I discovered that I was able to make the soft baked pretzels entirely out of whole wheat flour.
And it still had the pretty yeast bubbles, but with more of the whole grain goodness:
I could still roll them out into a long rope:
And shape them into pretzels, without stickiness on my hands.
And after a little dip in baking soda wash,
they went onto the sheet pan for 15 minutes and puffed up like crazy.
This time for the whole wheat version, I decided to make them cinnamon sugar pretzels.
It’s not that I don’t like the hot buttered ones…it’s just I’m crazy for cinnamon sugar tossed ANYTHING. Long ago when I’d go to the mall and get lured into the perpetually long line at Auntie Anne’s, I always got the cinnamon sugar one. Because that darned cinnamon smell in the air is what got me every time.
You just toss it in cinnamon sugar afterward so it sticks to the buttered dough =)
And because these are made from whole wheat flour, that means it’s totally okay to turn these into cinnamon sugar pretzels. You totally earn it with that 100% whole wheat part. Or so says my brain.
Whole Wheat Soft Baked Pretzels
Ingredients
For the Dough:
- 12.5 oz whole wheat flour, by weight (2.5 cups, measured)
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 packet Platinum Red Star Yeast
- 1 cup very warm water 120-125 degrees F
For the Soda Wash:
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 tbsp baking soda
For the topping:
- vegetable oil for greasing the sheet pan
- coarse sea salt for sprinkling
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter melted
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup sugar
Instructions
- Combine all the dough ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer, and mix with the paddle attachment until somewhat combined (or just mix by hand with a wooden spoon). Change to the dough hook and knead on medium low for 10 minutes. The dough shouldn’t be sticky, just slightly tacky to the touch. Place the dough in a ziploc bag and let the dough rise for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, and lightly grease a baking sheet with vegetable oil. You could also do parchment paper if you can find one that’s rated high enough (most parchment papers I’ve seen only go up to 420 degrees F).
- Remove the dough from the bag and place onto a clean countertop. Divide the dough into 8 pieces (just cut it with a knife).
- Whisk to combine the warm water and baking soda and heat in the microwave for 1 minute. FYI it’s not going to dissolve completely, and that’s okay.
- Roll each of the eight pieces into a long rope, and shape each one into a pretzel (see the step-by-step photos on the blog post to see how to do this).
- Dip each pretzel into the soda wash and place onto the greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, then let them rest for 10 minutes.
- Bake for 9 to 10 minutes until the pretzels are golden brown, and prep the cinnamon sugar by whisking the sugar and cinnamon together. Brush the pretzels with the melted butter while they are hot out of the oven, then toss in the cinnamon sugar. Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
434 Comments on “Whole Wheat Pretzels”
Your blog is beautiful, thanks for the awesome recipes! I’ve been wanting to try pretzels and these are where I’ll start. I think I’ll forgo the cinnamon sugar and make my own spicy mustard instead. Do you have any recipes you’d recommend? Thanks so much!
Hi Tarun, thanks!! The spicy mustard sounds great. I’ve actually never made my own mustard before, though I remember seeing a Food & Wine recipe that I thought looked good. I usually do a search online and see if something is well reviewed. Enjoy!
These are perfection.
Hi Joanne–
I tried these and they didn’t go well. My dough didn’t have the beautiful bubbles! I would’ve tossed them but my kids, always the optimists, thought I should bake them anyway. As I suspected, they were dense and heavy. I’m not sure where I went wrong with these but I’m the kind of person who can eat a hot pretzel everyday so I will stick to the original recipe. Thanks Joanne!
Hi Veronica, from everything you described, it sounds like the yeast was dead. Do you think the yeast was fresh enough? If the yeast isn’t expired, then the other possibility is that the water was too hot. Did you measure with a thermometer?
Hi Joanne,
The yeast was fresh– I just went out and bought the Platinum yeast so I know it was fresh…. although, now that you mention it…. I think I forgot to measure the water with a thermometer. :-/ Hmm….. ok, that might have been my fault. Looks like I will be trying these again with, hopefully, much better results!
Thanks again!
My favorite bread is whole wheat with added millet, using the cold fermentation method by Peter Reinhart.
Joanne,
My favorite bread recipe is whole wheat pizza dough.
It’s wonderful that you are so responsive to your fans. I was just telling my husband how dedicated you are in keeping up with comments and responding to requests, like those for turning recipes into whole-wheat recipes (which happens to be a diet restriction for me!).
And your photography and videography are both stunning. You know how to do a cooking website!
Annie
Thanks so much Annie! I do my best haha. Sometimes it’s overwhelming but replying to comments is important to me. Thanks for your support!
Joanne,
My favorite bread recipe is whole wheat pizza dough.
It’s wonderful that you are so responsive to your fans. I was just telling my husband how dedicated you are in keeping up with comments and responding to requests, like those for turning recipes into whole-wheat recipes (which happens to be a diet restriction for me!).
And your photography and videography are both stunning. You know how to do a cooking website!
Annie
Hello ladies (and gentlemen if I missed you),
I have a good 2lbs of corn flour left over from a tortilla chip experiment; what say you on the prospect of turning out corn pretzels?
Best,
H
Hi Harold, gluten development is essential for this recipe and you won’t be able to develop any with corn flour.
Hi, I just tried your whole wheat recipe and my dough would not roll out into ropes. It would just crumble apart. I followed the recipe to a T so I am not sure what happened. My dough is now resting after making nuggets out of the dough and I will bake them after the rest. I hope it works. Disappointed because the recipe looked so yummy.
Hi Anna, if it’s not staying together that means there isn’t enough gluten development to hold it. Did you use the Red Star Yeast Platinum or regular yeast?
might no have enough water. dough should hold together even if the gluten isn’t developed…
Very good point Sharon.
Just discovered your sight today. Love it and thanks for your wonderful recipes. I am making the ribs today along with the cheese biscuits. Tonight I am trying the pretzels which I have never made before. I mainly never made pretzels before because it seemed to hard but with your pictures and recipe I know I can do it. Thanks again
Hi Nancy, that’s great! The pretzels are definitely doable, let me know how it goes! Hope you have a nice dinner =)
Can the dough be made and rise via bread machine dough setting?
You would need a longer knead time and a longer rise time as well. What I do is run the machine through the kneading part of the dough cycle. When it gets to the rise, I reset it and start the dough setting over. That way it kneads again. Dough will have a smooth sheen and be stretchy if it has kneaded long enough. Then when the rise is over, I just leave it untouched and let it continue to rise until doubled. Then I take it out, punch it down and use it however I need to. HTH
I did make the ones with white flour. They were very tasty. I cheated a little bit. I bought fresh pizza dough and used that. One thing I didn’t do was roll my dough out far enough so I just laid them across each other.
Hi!
How do you think these will work with regular ol’ yeast? I don’t have any of the platinum on hand and am dying to make these!
Hi Kristin, I haven’t tried it, but I imagine it would still turn out fine, it might be a bit denser with less gluten development but should still be tasty!
I was wandering if you have any recipes using fresh milled flour. I’m milling my own with a Nutrigrain flour meal. I have easily adapted all my quick bread recipes,but not my yeast raised ones. I’d love to try this pretzel recipe with fresh milled flour, but I’m a little hesitant.
Hi Lora, I have not had any experience with fresh milled flour, and so far I haven’t had anyone leave comments about baking with fresh milled flour. If you do try it, please let us know how it goes =)
You can make pretzels with freshly milled flour. Actually Whole wheat flour is very high in protein, higher than white flour, but you have to knead the bread for about twice as long to develop the gluten. I make everything with whole wheat flour. It is very versatile. I have hard red, which is highest in protein and has the nuttiest flavor, hard white, which is better for cake or muffins and then soft white which is nice for pastry. Soft white is lowest in protein, and low in gluten, so it will not make a good bread but will make a very tender pie crust. You can mill all three of these and use them in everything.
Sharon, you are a gem!!! Thanks for sharing your expertise.
I tried this recipe last night with fresh milled flour (I used hard white wheat, milled with my Nutrigrain mill). It worked great with this yeast! Fear not! 🙂
Hi! I just wanted to tell you that your recipes are amazing! I just made these pretzels and they were really delicous, everyone in my house (including me!) ate them up so fast! I was a little scared to make pretzels at home, but was at the mall yesterday and passed by auntie anns pretzels and wanted one soo bad but know they are loaded with calories, so having a delicious whole wheat one with cinnamon, splenda, and spray butter definately did the trick! Your recipes are great, easy to follow and I love the videos! I dont know how you stay so tiny with all of this delicious food hahah! keep up the good work, you have the best food website on the internet, these pretzels were right on with taste, texture and came out just like the pictures, thank you soo much for your website!! 🙂
Hi Christina, thanks so much! Can’t believe someone called me tiny, made my day LOL. I struggle…I count calories most days, it’s a pain! So glad you loved these pretzels!!!
I am anxious to try these. We love to try new things.