Soft pretzels over time
149 of the 173 recipes carry a publication date, from 2000 to 2026. Below: how many pages each year, whether the typical batch changed between the oldest and newest, and the oldest and newest pages themselves.
A date here is the one the page gives for itself: when it was published, or last updated. Sites often refresh an old recipe and its date together, so read these as when the pages went up, not when the recipes were created.
Recipes per year
Dated pages by the year they give. The first bar gathers the 2 pages from before 2007. Shading marks the periods compared below.
How the typical batch changed
No ingredient shows a clear change between soft pretzel pages dated before 2019 and those dated 2019 or later. The medians move a little from period to period, but by no more than chance would with this many recipes.
| Per 100 g flour | Before 201971 recipes | 2019 and later78 recipes |
|---|---|---|
| WaterNo clear change | 63% | 63% |
| ButterNo clear change | 8.3% | 6.8% |
| SugarNo clear change | 2.2% | 2.6% |
| SaltNo clear change | 1.6% | 1.7% |
| YeastNo clear change | 1.2% | 1.4% |
Each cell is the median baker's percentage in that period: grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour. Higher and lower compare the newest period with the oldest, only where the change is clear (see how below). Periods are cut at year boundaries so each holds about the same number of recipes.
Ingredients that gained or lost ground
Share of each period's recipes that list the ingredient. Only changes between the oldest and newest periods too large to be likely chance are listed.
| Recipes using | Before 2019 | 2019 and later |
|---|---|---|
| Bread flourMore common | 2% | 19% |
Oldest and newest pages
Oldest dates
Mar 7, 2000
Laugengebäck · oetker.deJun 23, 2004
Soft Pretzels · bettycrocker.comJan 30, 2008
Des bretzels gruyère et lardons comme en alsace ! · ptitchef.comMay 15, 2008
Bretzel et mauricette de ode ! : la meilleure recette · marmiton.orgNov 25, 2008
Pretzel · tudogostoso.com.br
Newest dates
Mar 27, 2026
Bretzels gratinés · chefsimon.comFeb 4, 2026
Soft Pretzel Bite Recipe · livewellbakeoften.comFeb 3, 2026
Homemade Soft Pretzels · loveandlemons.comJan 15, 2026
Pretzel Buns · handletheheat.comNov 9, 2025
Pretzel Bites · inlaurasbakery.com
How the dates are read
Each date is the publication date in the recipe page's own structured data. 17 of the 173 recipes have none, or one without a year (such as “December 3”), and are left out.
7 more carry a date their site gave to many pages at once, which marks a site move or redesign rather than a publication: 2018-01-01 on tasteofhome.com (222 pages across Recipe Lab, 3 of them here), 2016-11-16 on foodnetwork.com (19 pages across Recipe Lab, 1 of them here) and 2016-11-20 on foodnetwork.com (14 pages across Recipe Lab, 1 of them here), and 2 more like it. They are left out too.
A change counts as clear when the newest period's median differs from the oldest period's by at least a tenth and a rank test puts the gap at 2.5 standard errors or more. For the share of recipes using an ingredient, the bar is 3 standard errors and 8 percentage points. Every ingredient is tested, so a lower bar would flag chance differences on most pages.
2026 is still in progress, so its bar is short for a reason that has nothing to do with baking.