A lye ball is a pretzel that gave up on the knot. The dough is soft and slightly sweet, the dip in food-grade lye is what turns the crust deep brown and gives it that faintly soapy, mineral edge, and the filling keeps the middle from drying out. Ten to a batch, good for two days.
Chinese bakery · Bread
Cheese Lye Balls With Red Bean, Pretzel Style
A soft milk dough wrapped around red bean and cheese, frozen, dipped in lye and baked hard, which gives the pretzel crust without the pretzel shape.
- Prep75 min
- Cook18 min
- Serves10
- LevelMedium
Ingredients
| 240 g | bread flour |
| 30 g | cake flour |
| 10 g | milk powder |
| 175 g | milk |
| 15 g | butter , softened |
| 2 g | instant yeast |
| 2 g | salt |
| 10 g | caster sugar |
| 250 g | red bean paste |
| 100 g | cheese , firm, cut into cubes |
| 500 g | water , for the lye bath |
| 20 g | food-grade lye |
| 1 tsp | sesame seeds |
Method
- Mix the flours, milk powder, yeast, sugar, milk and butter and knead to a smooth dough, about 8 minutes by machine.
- Weigh the dough into pieces of 40 to 50 g and rest them under a cloth for 15 minutes.
- Flatten each piece, add red bean paste and a cube of cheese with the cheese facing down, and pinch the seam firmly shut.
- Freeze the balls for 40 minutes, until they hold their shape under a finger.
- Dissolve the lye in the water, dip each frozen ball for 30 seconds, then drain and blot the excess.
- Snip a cross in the top of each one and scatter sesame seeds over them.
- Bake at 190 °C for 18 minutes, then mist the hot crust with water and let the balls cool on a rack.
Notes
- Cheese down, not up. Facing the base, it stays inside; facing the top, it breaks through the cross and burns.
- Food-grade lye only, and gloves on. It is caustic enough to take skin off a knuckle.
- The freeze is what keeps the shape through the bath. Warm dough slumps and the balls flatten in the water.
Ratios and technique checked against No糯糯oN on Douguo (奶酪碱水球). The method here is written by Stellaok and the illustration is ours; no text or photograph from the source is reproduced.