Cast aluminum pastry iron. Missouri History Museum / wikimedia / 2017 / Public Domain
A Chinese pretzel iron is a version of a rosette iron that tends to have somewhat larger patterns available and be somewhat “deeper” in its height. They can be hard to find, so most people use rosette irons instead.
You use one with the exact same techniques as you would a rosette iron.
The pretzels made with it can be savoury or sweet.
Cooking Tips
Batter
2 eggs
1 cup (8 oz / 225 g) sugar
2 cups (10 oz / 330 g) flour
4 tablespoons cornstarch (aka cornflour in the UK)
3/4 cup (6 oz / 175 ml) milk or water
Sesame seeds
Mix together all ingredients, reserving a handful of sesame seeds.
Heat the oil, then heat the pretzel iron in the oil (as you do a rosette iron). Dip the hot iron into batter but as you do, only dip it about half of its depth into the batter. Don’t let the batter go over the top of the iron. Hold the iron still before about 5 seconds to let the batter adhere. Then, transfer the iron back to the hot oil. When you can shake off the cooking pretzel, and let it continue cooking. Let iron sit by itself in the oil to reheat for another round. Every few pretzels, stir the batter to bring the sesame seeds up off the bottom and sprinkle a few more in from your reserved handful.
When cooled, store in an airtight container.
Substitutes
Rosette iron.
Video
Video of Chinese pretzel irons in use.