These young bakers from the company's early years might be amazed at the baking technology that has developed since their time.Įach of these products has its own recipe. The bakery evolved into one of the most modern pretzel bakeries in the world, a 180,000 square foot bakery that produces up to 50 million pretzels a day in different shapes and varieties: pretzel thins, pennysticks, mini pretzels, waffle pretzels, nuggets, braided pretzels, sourdough hard pretzels, penny grahams, rods, nibblers, thick sticks and thin sticks. The family recipe turned this small bakery in which the pretzels were shaped by hand into something he never imagined. He acquired a rather small building of 75 square feet with a bakery oven to start his quest. He had worked for other bakers across the state, but decided it was time to put the family recipe to use and start his own pretzel bakery. Benzel, along with his family, stepped out of a boxcar in Altoona, Blair County, in November 1911. A hundred years later, the name on the door of the family-owned business remains the same.Īdolph Benzel, an immigrant from Germany, arrived in America with an old world recipe for pretzels and a dream of establishing a bakery. When creating his own pretzel company in 1911, Adolph Benzel gave his central Pennsylvania bakery the name of Benzel’s Bretzel Bakery. ![]() But this prosciutto-Asiago combination immediately felt like an elegant, well-deserved classic, the ham-and-cheese croissant of pretzels.Benzel's Bakery has been making pretzels in Altoona for one hundred years.īretzel is the German word for what we know as pretzel. Prosciutto and Asiago ($5): The salty, nutty flavor of Asiago cheese is a lovely complement to Squabisch’s dough - no wonder the shop always sells Asiago pretzels. (It’s like the German answer to the chicken in a space suit at Brandon Jew’s Moongate Lounge in Chinatown, his riff on pigs in a blanket.) For some reason, perhaps thanks to added moisture from the brat, this was the best expression of the dough: chewy and tender, almost like milk bread but with a crusty exterior. Pretzel brat ($8): Here, the same pretzel dough is wrapped around a juicy brat sausage and topped with flaky salt. ![]() Squabisch’s salted s’mores pretzel with chocolate, marshmallow and crushed graham cracker. The doughy pretzel brat wraps around a juicy brat sausage is topped with flaky salt. This is one to definitely warm up at home for peak enjoyment. We didn’t detect much marshmallow, but it was fine without additional sweetness. It’s covered in gooey, rich dark chocolate and sprinkled with big flakes of salt and crumbled graham crackers. Salted s’mores ($5.50): The dark horse and the clear favorite of the bunch, even trumping the savory pretzels. Here are five Squabisch pretzels, ranked. And while it may be tempting to immediately devour your pretzels outside the shop, these pretzels benefit from a quick refresh in a toaster oven at home.įrom left, clockwise: the pretzel brat, jalapeño-cheddar, proscuitto Asiago, salted s'mores and chevre-pear-onion pretzels from Squabisch in Berkeley. While the offerings change daily, you’ll likely encounter some of these pretzels or a similar flavor combination to what we tried. The Chronicle stood in line to see what all the fuss is about. ![]() Even still, the pretzel mania is impressive.Ī line forms outside Squabisch, the German pretzel bakery in North Berkeley. Owner Uli Elser already had a following for his seasonal, sweet and savory creations through stands at the Grand Lake and Kensington farmers’ markets. ![]() It sells pretzels and only pretzels with about 10 rotating varieties per day until sold out. in North Berkeley on New Year’s Day, is finding out that the Bay Area is wild about soft German pretzels. The bakery, which debuted at 1585 Solano Ave.
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