Soft Pretzels Lab · Calculator

Design your own soft pretzels

The sliders start at the typical batch: the median of 173 recipes for each ingredient, in grams per 100 g of flour. Move any of them within the range that 90% of recipes use (the 5th to the 95th percentile) and the grams update, with where your choice sits among the recipes and what that ingredient does.

This scales ratios; it is not a tested recipe. Each ingredient moves on its own against the flour, and a combination no recipe uses may not bake the way you expect. For the method, pan and oven, follow the real recipes nearest your numbers.

Flour

Flour weight (g)

500 g, about 4 cups, makes one typical batch.

Start from a recipe

Load a real recipe's percentages into the sliders. Search by title or site.

Grams per 100 g of flour

Water
315 g · 63%about 1 1/3 cups
In the middle: 57% of recipes use more, 42% less.
A fairly stiff dough holds the twisted shape; the boiling bath is counted as an extra.
Butter
35 g · 7%about 2 1/2 tbsp
In the middle: 48% of recipes use more, 49% less.
A little butter keeps the inside soft.
Sugar
12 g · 2.4%about 1 tbsp
In the middle: 47% of recipes use more, 49% less.
Brown sugar or malt feeds the yeast and deepens the crust color.
Salt
9 g · 1.7%
In the middle: 47% of recipes use more, 45% less.
Salt in the dough, before the coarse salt on top.
Yeast
7 g · 1.4%
In the middle: 32% of recipes use more, 49% less.
Instant or active dry yeast; most recipes rise once.

Your soft pretzels

Your soft pretzels in grams, with approximate volumes
Ingredient	Grams
Flour	500 gabout 4 cups
Watermilk, buttermilk, yogurt, cream and water	315 gabout 1 1/3 cups
Butterbutter, oil and shortening	35 gabout 2 1/2 tbsp
Sugarwhite sugar, brown sugar, honey and syrups	12 gabout 1 tbsp
Salt	9 g
Yeast	7 g
Total	878 g

878 g in all from 500 g of flour, counting only the groups above.

Closest real recipe: Soft Pretzel Bites Recipe (crazyforcrust.com).

BakeThe median of 149 recipes is 425°F (220°C), most for 12 to 20 minutes at their own size. A bigger or smaller batch, or a different pan, changes the time.

The 3 real recipes nearest your numbers

Measured on water, butter, sugar, salt and yeast at once. These are published, tested recipes: follow one for its method, pan and timing, or load its percentages and adjust from there.

1
Soft Pretzel Bites Recipe · crazyforcrust.com
water 64% · butter 5.7% · sugar 2.6% · salt 1.8% · yeast 1.4%
2
Soft Pretzel Recipe · crazyforcrust.com
water 64% · butter 5.7% · sugar 2.6% · salt 1.8% · yeast 1.4%
3
Brezeln und Obatzter · bettybossi.ch
water 68% · butter 8.3% · sugar 2.1% · salt 2% · yeast 1.2%

How the calculator works

Every recipe is reduced to baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient group per 100 g of flour. The starting point is the median of all 173 recipes for each group separately, so no single recipe is exactly the starting batch. Grams are your flour weight times each percentage, rounded to the nearest 5 g above 50 g and the nearest gram or half gram below.

“More than 80% of recipes” counts the recipes with strictly less of that ingredient per gram of flour. The nearest recipes are measured on every ingredient at once, each scaled by how much recipes vary on it, so a wide-ranging ingredient does not outweigh a narrow one.

Only the groups listed are counted. Vanilla, spices, mix-ins and toppings are left out unless they have their own slider. Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.