Again I'll say how cool it was to participate in my first ever throwdown. Didn't bring home that beautiful knife (man that thing is sweet!), or the other great prizes, but the winners were more deserving than me for sure, great entries!!
My inspiration for my soup was an appetizer called "Fatty's Final Beer Cheese" from a local restaurant that's a dip served with soft pretzel bites. It's made with a local Belgian beer called "Final Absolution" from Dragonmead Brewing. I replicated the dip over the holidays and thought, "how can I turn that into a soup"? Then it hit me that it only made sense to serve it in a bread bowl. Better yet, a pretzel bread bowl! And add some freshly smoked sausage! So I Googled what I could to come up with recipes and off I went. Turned out even better than I thought it would, and even though I forgot the sign that read "Soup" and then proceeded to eat my entry, only to remember as I was cleaning up
. Luckily I had a couple extra pretzel bowls left over and re-took the photo; although I liked the original better. Anyways, sorry for being long winded.
Started by making the pretzel bread bowls (recipe in comments)...
Mixing the dough (it's a LOT, this is the larger KA mixer):
Proofed in the oven. Oops, all that yeast had it poofin' during proofin':
Formed into 6 not-even-close-to-the-same-size balls LOL:
Boiled them in the baking soda/water bath:
Slathered egg wash, then cut cross hatches on the top of each, sprinkled with salt:
I screwed up and forgot to pre-heat the oven, so the raw dough sat a little longer than it should have. Then I panicked and threw them in the oven before it was up to temp. Then the ones on the top rack started burning, so I had to keep moving them all around, while trying to bake them. Luckily they came out looking great:
Meanwhile I was smoking raw bratwurst. I think it was about an hour/hour and a half at 250. IT was 160:
For the soup I started by frying bacon in the pan. I didn't get pics of the individual ingredients, sorry. The soup recipe is *kinda* in the comments below since I Frankenstein'd a beer cheese soup recipe and the dip recipe together. I also cut up the smoked sausage and put it into the soup while it cooked:
Poured the soup into the bowls, praying it would seep through the cracks I accidentally made in a few of them when hollowing the bowls out by hand. Here is my first pic I was going to send. Glad I remembered the sign before sending:
The vegetables I pickled a couple days before. Just cut up carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, onions, garlic and spices in a jar with a mix of red wine and white wine vinegar:
Thanks to everyone who voted for my concoction. I would be interested to hear if anyone makes their own version and what tweaks/changes can be made to make it better. Enjoy!
My inspiration for my soup was an appetizer called "Fatty's Final Beer Cheese" from a local restaurant that's a dip served with soft pretzel bites. It's made with a local Belgian beer called "Final Absolution" from Dragonmead Brewing. I replicated the dip over the holidays and thought, "how can I turn that into a soup"? Then it hit me that it only made sense to serve it in a bread bowl. Better yet, a pretzel bread bowl! And add some freshly smoked sausage! So I Googled what I could to come up with recipes and off I went. Turned out even better than I thought it would, and even though I forgot the sign that read "Soup" and then proceeded to eat my entry, only to remember as I was cleaning up
. Luckily I had a couple extra pretzel bowls left over and re-took the photo; although I liked the original better. Anyways, sorry for being long winded.Started by making the pretzel bread bowls (recipe in comments)...
Mixing the dough (it's a LOT, this is the larger KA mixer):
Proofed in the oven. Oops, all that yeast had it poofin' during proofin':
Formed into 6 not-even-close-to-the-same-size balls LOL:
Boiled them in the baking soda/water bath:
Slathered egg wash, then cut cross hatches on the top of each, sprinkled with salt:
I screwed up and forgot to pre-heat the oven, so the raw dough sat a little longer than it should have. Then I panicked and threw them in the oven before it was up to temp. Then the ones on the top rack started burning, so I had to keep moving them all around, while trying to bake them. Luckily they came out looking great:
Meanwhile I was smoking raw bratwurst. I think it was about an hour/hour and a half at 250. IT was 160:
For the soup I started by frying bacon in the pan. I didn't get pics of the individual ingredients, sorry. The soup recipe is *kinda* in the comments below since I Frankenstein'd a beer cheese soup recipe and the dip recipe together. I also cut up the smoked sausage and put it into the soup while it cooked:
Poured the soup into the bowls, praying it would seep through the cracks I accidentally made in a few of them when hollowing the bowls out by hand. Here is my first pic I was going to send. Glad I remembered the sign before sending:
The vegetables I pickled a couple days before. Just cut up carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, onions, garlic and spices in a jar with a mix of red wine and white wine vinegar:
Thanks to everyone who voted for my concoction. I would be interested to hear if anyone makes their own version and what tweaks/changes can be made to make it better. Enjoy!
