Ingredients:
1 cup warm milk
1/2 cup warm water
200g active sourdough start
2 tablespoons soft butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2-5 cups flour
Method:
Combine everything in the bowl of a mixer. Using a dough hook, knead until very smooth. The dough should pull away from the edges while on medium low speed. If not, add 1/4 cup more flour and mix again. Repeat until the dough is tacky but no longer sticky. Cover the dough until it has doubled in size. This will take a while because of the milk and sugar in the dough, mine took about 6 hours.
Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment And sprinkling a good amount of corn meal over the top. Dump it out onto a floured surface and divide it into 6 equal portions.
Roll out the dough into very long ropes, about the width of a cigar. They should be 1 1/2-2 feet long.
Form into a pretzel shape by forming it first into a U and then twist the ends twice, then place them over the bottom of the U.
Place the pretzel shapes onto the sheet pan. Cover with a lid or a damp tea towel and let them rise until they are puffy and have noticible grown. This took my dough 2 hours.
Prepare a second sheet pan the same way as the first.
Make the pretzel solution by adding water to a large wide pot filled with water twice the height of the pretzels. Add 1/4 cup baking soda and bring it to a boil.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cut the parchment into squares around the dough and place them one at a time into the boiling water. After a few seconds use tongs to remove the parchment, it should slide right out. Let the dough boil for 30 seconds, then remove it using a large slotted spoon (two if they're small). Gently dab it on a towel before placing it on the second sheet pan. For a salted pretzel: While the dough is still wet sprinkle it with pretzel salt or coarse sea salt. Repeat with each pretzel.
For a cinnamon sugar pretzel: omit the salt.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until deep golden brown. Brush with butter right out of the oven. For the cinnamon sugar pretzels press the tops of the pretzels into a bowl with a mixture of 1 cup sugar and 1 tablespoons of cinnamon.