Nearly magical things happen in the night kitchen at Das Bevo when pretzel maker Anne Cronin of Cronin’s Pretzels gets to work baking pretzels for the following day. Although she makes scads of pretzels, she eschews the big Hobart mixer and opts instead to hand-mix each batch of pretzel sticks, bites, hot dog buns, and specialties, like cinnamon sugar twists and praying arms buns topped with ivory sesame seeds.
She’s an avid food historian of pretzels and a meticulous baker whose soft, darkly brown and yeasty pretzels have been turning heads and tastes at both Das Bevo and at the Arnold farmers market. If you plan to find her at the market, go early. She sells out of all pretzels – over 200 of them -- every Saturday before 10 a.m. “Each week, I bake more, and every time, they sell out,” she says.
Ryan Nahn and Anne Cronin at the Arnold Farmer's Market.
This self-taught chef and baker has worked in the restaurant industry for 15 years, but started down the road to pretzel baking 10 years back. “When I met my boyfriend, Ryan Nahn, he brought Gus’ Pretzels for our gaming group. A lot of people like Gus’, but they’re not my thing,” she says.
“I researched Bavarian pretzels to understand how they used to be made and started experimenting. It took me five years to get the dough just right. To get the deep brown color, I use an old-fashioned technique. My pretzels all take a mild lye bath before baking. They were a big hit with the gaming group.”
In 2014, Cronin began selling her pretzels at the Arnold Farmers Market. “I started doing the market for extra money because I wanted to go out on my own,” she says. Her stellar sales at the market led her to think about expanding to other farmers markets. As luck would have it, Das Bevo needed a good source for pretzels.
“I grew up knowing Pat Schuchard, from family connections at Annunciation parish, but it was my dad’s encouragement that led me to call him. What was I going to say? ‘Can I use your kitchen?’ But I did call, we did a pretzel tasting, and that was it. I do use their kitchen, baking at night.”
The German Board at Das Bevo: grilled G&W bratwurst, kraut, German potato salad, beer mustard, and a Cronin's stick pretzel.
For now, Cronin still makes each batch of pretzels the really old-fashioned way. She mixes each batch of dough by hand. Throughout the day she makes several sequential batches. She puts the dough through two rises, punches it down, then rolls, dips them in the lye bath, adds salt or sprinkles toppings, then bakes them off in a high temperature, dry heat oven.
She understands she will need to use a commercial mixer to automate the process, but she’s prepared. “Mixers tend to heat the dough, so I’ll need to add conditioners to keep the quality up,” she says. She’s already started the research as her business keeps expanding.
Future plans call for the basement kitchen at Das Bevo to be up and running soon. “One day, a former Bevo Mill employee came through and said the basement kitchen was where all the breads, and their famous cheddar biscuits, were baked each day,” Cronin says. “I’ll be moving down there when it’s ready.”
Cronin would like to expand. She’d like to sell at other farmers markets. Adding other bread products to her repertoire at Das Bevo is also an option. “I think pretzel brats would be a good item,” she says. Her pretzels will be available on carts in their newly-opened Biergarten.
What started as a simple way to earn more cash turned into a pretzel passion for Cronin. The city wins too, when another pretzel maker joins the ranks and expands choices. If you want to taste Cronin’s pretzels, travel to Arnold, or to Das Bevo and pretzel up.
