Ever Use Lye In The Kitchen?

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I was reading a recipe yesterday about how to make homemade soft pretzels and the recipe mentioned using food grade lye to get the combination crust and soft interior that makes soft pretzels so good.

Has anyone ever tried this at home? I'm not sure I'm comfortable using lye in anything I eat.
 
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As it turns out, my favorite sticky rice cake recipes from my hometown (the rice cakes are called kutsinta, pichi-pichi, and suman lihiya) all use lye to give it that gummy and rubbery texture. Of course, it's in very very small amounts... 2 teaspoons to a liter of water, and I'm pretty sure that's already Chinese lye water just getting diluted further.

That same rubberiness can be imparted to bagels and, apparently, pretzels for that rubbery crust.

Pichi-pichi, once I get around to making it, I joke would be the most dangerous thing I ever made to eat in the kitchen because it involves lye water and cassava. Cassava has cyanide in the skin.
 
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Gosh, all those things sound a bit scary. I've heard of using lye in the pretzels when I watched a YouTube video ages ago, but they did say not to do it at home because it's dangerous. I'm guessing most home-bakers will leave the lye part out, but it does add something to the pretzel for sure. My friend makes pretzels, but the texture is not the same as the ones you get from the baker.store.

The only other times I've heard of using lye in the kitchen is for stripping the seasoning off cast iron pans! Says it all really. ;)
 

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