S's Brezeln / Pretzels

S missed real German pretzels so much he decided to make his own. He's gotten really good at it now - he rolls them out all identical like a pro. He translated his recipe for the gardeners at JIC a while back, and I took note too.  We (he mostly) just made some for our friends' baby's first birthday party - her initials are LP so I tried to make Ls and Ps and 1s as well as regular pretzel shapes...

Dough
500 g white bread flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
250 ml lukewarm water
~ I use 2 tsp of dried yeast
20 g butter

salt crystals + seeds (sunflower/sesame/pumpkin) to sprinkle on top

For the basic dipping-solution:
3% NaOH solution (in water)

What you need to do:

Mix dough ingredients together until it is a smooth dough, then cover and let stand at a moderately warm place for ~ 20 min or so. The dough amount should increase up to twofold.

Then use a bit of dough (this recipe can give up to 15 Brezeln - sometimes 10) roll it out to a string that is a bit thicker in the middle. Form it to a Brezel like shape. In fact any other shape also works of course.

Put the formed Brezeln in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Dip them into the 3% NaOH solution (or bicarbonate of soda solution), wear gloves for that or avoid touching the NaOH covered dough by using metal tools.

Transfer the dipped Brezeln on a greased baking tray. Slice the thick brezel part open a little bit and widen it so that the underlying level gets exposed.

Sprinkle the Brezeln with salt, seed ...

Pre-heat oven to 200C and bake Brezeln for 15-25 minutes until nice and brown.

The NaOH solution can be re-used.