Guglhupf Mimic, Take 1

I hate to admit it, but there are a few things I miss about Durham, NC. One of these missed things is being only a pleasant walk away from Guglhupf Bakery. Specifically, having ready access to their fantastic baked goods. Combine this pining for good bakery with not being a fan of the saccharine, ooey-gooey, lovey-dovey-ness of Valentine's day, I thought I had struck on a perfect idea for a thoughtful Hubber gift. I would mail order our favorite Durham weekend treats, Guglhpf bretzelsticks with cheese, for Valentine's day delivery. Perfect, right?

Wrong.

When we lived in Durham, Guglhupf offered shipping. This is no longer the case. 

What looks like a dark brown baked potato in the last photo is my first attempt at replicating delicious bretzelsticks with cheese (or, as we refer to them, slippers with cheese). It tasted pretty darn good, but there's vast room for improvement.

I scoured my cookbooks and the internet for pretzel and pretzel roll recipes. I disregarded the recipes that called for scalded milk and stuck with simple. Water, yeast, sugar, flour, butter, salt. I did come across some recipes that did not call for any fat, but the majority of what I saw included either melted butter or oil. There was also quite a range of baking temperatures and times. I went with the middle of the temperature range and checked on the pretzel rolls every few minutes.

I never thought I would try to replicate Guglhupf bretzelsticks with cheese because pretzel making requires poaching the unbaked dough in a lye solution. I have no interest in messing with lye. I was delighted to find a safer alternative, baking soda dissolved in boiling water. Too late I found warnings not to use an aluminum pan for this. And also discovered that my cookware is indeed aluminum. I haven't yet consulted with the resident chemist to learn what sort of reaction occurred in my poor pot, but I can tell you that the hard, anodized surface is compromised. The anodized pot had been entirely black. Now, up to the water line, the shiny aluminum is patchily visible. Sheesh.

One more lesson I need to learn is how to transfer the risen rolls to the water bath without deflating them. Without exception, every roll deflated when I picked it up to poach it. The only advice I can find online is to handle the rolls gently (I thought I had!). The other piece of advice concerns the problem of the rolls deflating in the water bath itself (rolls are probably over-proofed), which wasn't my trouble. My rolls deflated before hitting the water. Any ideas?

I thought about sharing the pretzel sub roll recipe I cobbled together, but it may very well be the culprit for my resultant flat, dense pretzel sticks. The taste and exterior texture are spot on, but the deflated interior is not desirable. Back to the drawing board. At some point.