Bayerische Breze

Appearance & taste

The shape recalls arms folded in prayer. A thinly rolled strand of dough is looped with a double knot in the middle, and the ends are pressed onto the thick curve so that, as far as possible, three fields of equal size are formed. The crust is thin, richly glossy and copper to chestnut brown; the wild cracks in the curve that form during baking provide a pale contrast. The crumb is moist, tender and light.

According to the specification, what matters for the eating experience is the lye taste, the crisp, short break and the fluffy, still soft crumb. The Breze is usually sprinkled with coarse salt, but it is also available with poppy seeds, sesame, pumpkin or sunflower seeds, or cheese.

It differs from the Swabian Brezel in its thicker arms, which are attached much higher on the curve, and in that the thick middle is not cut. It contains less fat, 1.5 to 4 % instead of 4 to 8 %, is therefore particularly crisp and must be evenly baked.

Production

The dough of wheat flour, water, yeast, salt, fat and possibly a baking agent containing malt is kneaded intensively, divided and rolled into a strand that tapers towards the ends. The Breze is looped from it by hand with a special throwing technique or by machine, and the ends are pressed on firmly. The dough pieces then either go straight on or are chilled to delay proving.

They are dipped in sodium hydroxide solution diluted to less than 4 % sodium hydroxide. The Brezen are then sprinkled with pretzel salt and baked. Afterwards they must cool well and be stored dry, because otherwise the thin, salty crust draws in water. Frozen dough pieces already have their pretzel shape and are usually dipped in lye before freezing. The entire production takes place in Bavaria.

Origin & history

The Breze is a shaped bread and, according to the specification, probably goes back to the Roman ring bread, which was baked as communion bread, above all in monasteries. This first gave rise to a shape with one arm, similar to a six, and finally, from two joined one-armed Brezen, today’s Breze. The name goes back via the Old High German “Brezitella” to the Latin “brachiatellium”, roughly “little arm”. It was baked as a festive pastry for New Year, Palm Sunday and harvest festival; because there were many monasteries in southern Germany, it is particularly widespread there.

According to Bavarian tradition, the lye Breze came about through a mix-up. In 1839 Anton Nepomuk Pfannenbrenner, a baker in the royal coffee house of the court supplier Johan Eilles in Munich, mistakenly reached for the sodium hydroxide solution normally used to clean the baking trays instead of the sugar water. Since then, 11 February 1839 has been regarded as the first day a lye Breze was sold; that same morning it was tasted by the royal Württemberg envoy Wilhelm Eugen von Ursingen.

Today almost every bakery in Bavaria makes Brezen. It is part of the Bavarian Brotzeit and goes with Munich Weißwurst and Leberkäse, and according to the specification it has become known worldwide through the Oktoberfest.