Soft Pretzels

Yes, it a recipe!!! I know, I know. I have posted a recipe in seems like ages.I blame it on work. But I was determined on this particular day to bake up a little something. I had been craving pretzels for quite a while. I love pretzels. Especially those soft thick ones you find in the mall. I'd always buy either a lightly salted or a cinnamon sugar. Those were my two picks. But since I'm on a tight budget right now, I couldn't really go out and buy few of them from my local mall. The county fairs are a bit far from me, so that was out of the question.

So I searched the interweb to various recipes. What I found is that it's very similar to making bread. Which in reality it is bread, just with a little extra steps and toppings. So I mixed and matched and formulated something into my own and still reminded me of the ones found at the local malls. The result is what you see here. Slightly crunchy crust with a delicious chewy inside. I like to baste the pretzels with melted butter a second time after baking to make it mice and butter. Yum!!! Though, I need to work on my pretzel twisting skills though. I tried to do it the lift and twirl in the air move to no avail. but I did manage to make them look decent after a couple tries.

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Makes 8 pretzels

Soft Pretzels

1 packet active dry yeast
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 c warm water 110˚F
3 c All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil

2 c water (110˚F)
2 Tbsp baking soda
1 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
Coarse Kosher Salt

 before baking

In a bowl dissolve the yeast in in the 1 cup warm water and add the 1 Tbsp sugar. Stir lightly to activate yeast. Then add the 1 tsp salt and slowly mix in the flour.

Once the mixture has combine in to a dough ball, liberally flour a flat surface and knead the dough for roughly 8 minutes.

In another clean bowl add the olive oil and coat bowl and the dough ball. Cover the bowl with a towel and leave it in a quiet slightly dimmed area to let the dough rise. Roughly 1 hour.

After an hour, remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll out each piece into a 1/2-inch thick, 18-inch rope and form it into the pretzel shape. and place them into a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Let the pretzels rise a second time for roughly 15- minutes.

Preheat your oven to 450˚F

In a wide enough dish combine the 2 cups water with baking soda. Mix to dissolve. Once the pretzels have risen a second time, dip each pretzel in the baking soda solution for a few seconds and place it back on the baking sheet.

Baste each pretzel with the melted butter and sprinkle some of the coarse kosker salt on top.

Bake for 10-15 minutes.

To make cinnamon pretzels: do not add salt before baking. After baking baste the pretzels once more with melted butter and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar.