Any fans of soft pretzels here? My little unit can't resist Aunty Anne's whenever we pass one. The soft morsels of warm pretzels with some cheese dips... Perfect snack.
I myself have been meaning to try to make some at home. Obviously, knowing what goes in and being able to make them in bulk is a big plus to making my own. Once I've made loads, I can just freeze and reheat when needed.
I finally made them last week when my husband kissed me goodbye before leaving for work and said "you should really make some pretzels or something".
So, as always, I Googled for recipes, studied them, read their reviews, and decided which one I would try; And I'm so SO happy with how they turned out. Fat and soft and all sorts of wonderful - and it was pretty easy to make as well. I didn't have any cheese at hand to make cheese dips, but I did have some salted caramel sauce and that went great with the pretzels too.
Recipe adapted from foodnetwork.com
Total time : 2 hours
Yields : 16 pieces (original recipe says 8 but I find 16 better for size as these do poof up a healthy bit in the oven)
Ingredients :
- 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoons himalayan salt
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
- 2 ounces salted butter, melted
- Vegetable oil, for pan
- 10 cups water
- 2/3 cup baking soda
- 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
- Sea salt
Directions :
1. Add sugar, salt and yeast into the water and allow it to sit for 5 minutes until. Mixture begins to foam up.
2. Sieve flour into a large mixing bowl. Add in melted butted and yeast mixture and mix on low speed using a dough hook. Once mixture has come together, increase speed and allow to mix until dough forms and side of the bowl is clean.
3. Remove dough from mixing bowl, spray bowl with non stick spray or oil lightly and place dough back in the bowl. Cover with tea towel or cling film and allow to rise for an hour.
4. Once risen, heat your oven to 230°C and start boiling the 10 cups of water with baking soda to make a water bath.
5. Meanwhile, start rolling your pretzels. First, divide dough to 16 equal parts using a weighing scale. To roll out your pretzel, press one ball of dough down into a rectangle. Roll the rectangle into a cigarette, creating a tight, clean seam. With both hands, roll out the cigarette until it's about 12 inches long (measure it, really.) create a pretzel shape by bringing the ends to the middle while making a U.
6. Boil pretzels in the water bath for 30 seconds each, straining and placing them on a lined baking tray or silicone baking mat after.
7. Brush with egg wash (egg yolk and tablespoon of water) and sprinkle with sea salt. Of course, this is when you can get creative and choose whatever you want to top it with instead. If you like a sweet version, skip the salt and you can coat them with cinnamon sugar once they're out of the oven.
8. Bake for 7 minutes. Turn the tray and bake for another 7 minutes until golden brown.
9. Enjoy them hot!!
* I managed to freeze four of these. The rest disappeared quite quickly but I reckon you could make a whole batch just for freezing and store them in zip lock bags, rationed for ease of serving.
