Ceramic German Mug with Onions and Breading

A pretzel-dough mug baked dark and sturdy in the shape of a real German stein, filled with lager-braised caramelized onions and melted gruyere. It's crowned with a rim of crackly caraway-breaded onion rings standing in for the foam, and the whole vessel is fair game to eat.

Serves 6 · as served on Bluesky ↗

There's a trick to pretzel dough that not everybody knows: you can shape it around just about any oven-safe mold and get yourself a vessel on the other end, and a good stout ceramic German mug turns out to be about the handsomest form I've ever borrowed for the job. So that's the plan here — bake an honest-to-goodness pretzel mug, dark and glossy from a baking soda bath, then fill it with onions caramelized down low and slow till they're practically jam and simmered with a lager for backbone. The "breading" part gets its own moment too — a fistful of those onions stays raw, gets rung, dredged, and fried up crackly with a little caraway in the crumb so it can crown the rim like a foam head. Made a version of this for my brother-in-law Wendell's fortieth, minus the mug part, and folks about fought over the crispy rings. This one you eat cup and all — soup, stein, and stack.

Ingredients

Fresh

• 6 piece yellow onions (large, divided)
• 4 sprig fresh thyme

Fridge

• 2 cup lager beer (divided)
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter (melted, divided)
• 2 piece egg (divided)
• 2 cup gruyere cheese (shredded)

Pantry

• 4 cup bread flour
• 2¼ tsp active dry yeast
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• ⅔ cup baking soda
• 4 cup beef stock
• 2 piece bay leaf
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 6 cup vegetable oil (for frying)

Spice rack

• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 1 tbsp caraway seeds
• black pepper

Directions

1. Whisk together the bread flour, yeast, and brown sugar in a big bowl, then stir in lager warmed till just steamy and half the butter until you've got a shaggy dough.
2. Turn the dough out and knead in the kosher salt for about 8 minutes until smooth, then set it in a greased bowl to rise until doubled. ⏱ 1 hr
3. Butter and foil-wrap the outside of a clean ceramic beer mug — that's your mold — then press and stretch the risen dough around it to form a thick cup shape, and let it rise again until puffy. ⏱ 20 min
4. Bring a big pot of water to a boil with the baking soda, poach the dough-covered mold 30 seconds a side, then set it on a parchment-lined sheet, brush with egg beaten, and bake at 425°F until deep mahogany brown. ⏱ 25 min
5. Let it cool completely, then gently twist the ceramic mug free — what's left standing is your sturdy, edible pretzel mug.
6. Slice five of the onions thin for caramelizing, and separate the last one into whole rings, setting the rings aside for breading.
7. Melt the remaining butter in a big pot, add the sliced onions, and cook low and slow, stirring often, until deep amber and jammy. ⏱ 45 min
8. Deglaze with the remaining lager, then add the beef stock, thyme, and bay leaf, and simmer until rich and deep. ⏱ 20 min
9. Dredge the reserved onion rings in the flour, then the remaining egg, then a mix of the panko and caraway seeds, and fry in the vegetable oil at 350°F until golden and crisp. ⏱ 3 min
10. Ladle the onion soup into the pretzel mug, mound the gruyere on top, and broil until bubbling and browned, seasoning with black pepper.
11. Crown the rim with the breaded onion rings stacked like a foamy head, and serve the whole edible stein right away while it's hot.

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