I was inspired after seeing a hot dog with a pretzel bun. I have the recipe pretty close to where I want it, but I'm not sure what to use as a wash. I tried egg whites so far and wasn't very happy.
I'm open to all suggestions as I'm not sure what I want or what the expectation of a pretzel hot dog bun should be. Also would you doing anything special with the boil? I'm just using the standard baking soda and water at the moment.
Best Answer
If you want the hardcore, traditional pretzel flavor and crust, lye is really the only way to get it. You can dip it in a boiling bath of baking soda or washing soda for a minute or so. This can have the downside of giving the bun a really thick, leathery crust like a bagel. Alternately, to do a lye dip, you add one ounce of lye to one liter of water (add the lye to the water, not the water to the lye), stir and give it a few minutes to dissolve. The dough can be dipped in or brushed with the cold lye solution then baked. This will give you the really dark, thin, papery crust with that distinct pretzel flavor.
While the lye certainly isn't a chemical to be careless with, if you obey proper precautions (keep it off your skin, don't splash it, etc) it's nothing to be afraid of either.