Homemade Soft Pretzels!

I love me some soft pretzels, and when I lived in Annapolis, I had weekend access to hot, fresh, delicious soft pretzels at the local Amish market, where you got a free pretzel with the purchase of whatever specific shake they chose.

Apparently the Amish population is lacking where I live now, because there isn't an Amish market, and yet I still constantly crave pretzels. So, I decided that (with the help of Hubs) I'd make my own!

This is the recipe I got from Alton Brown. Please feel free to look it up yourself, as I took some artistic liberties (coughcough lazy shortcuts coughcough) with the directions. Alright, fine, I'll provide you with the link BECAUSE I'M A NICE PERSON.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt

We'll follow along with the directions using the pictures I took.

1.5 cups water, the yeast, the salt, and the sugar!

Combine the above in the bowl of your stand mixer, then let sit for five minutes to let the little yeasts awake from their slumber.

In the meantime, melt ya buttah

and weigh your flour.

After five minutes, your bowl should look like this. Little yeasty babies are awake! And burping!

Attach the dough hook for your mixer

Dump in that melty buttah

Dump in your flour

Put in on low speed, so that all the ingredients can meet

Now that they're mostly-ish mixed together, crank the speed to medium 

By medium, I assumed he meant high. Let the mixer do it's magic until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl, about 4-5 minutes. Also, obviously these are Hubs' hands. Mine are prettier.

After realizing that our dough was too sticky to pull away (Florida humidity ruins everything ever), we added about 2.5 more tablespoons of flour. Then it did this, so we assume it worked.

Cover the dough and the inside of the bowl with a light coating of vegetable oil to  prevent a large sticky mess, slap some plastic wrap on top, and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 50-55 minutes.

I put mine on my screened in porch, and since it's about 100 degrees outside and 85%  humidity, decided I'd check it after 40 minutes. Also, robot timer returns.

This should be just enough time to write the start of your blog post and beat level 142 of Candy Crush.

Yup, that'll do it.

Set your oven to 450

Prep your sheet pans

Cut some parchment paper to size, then oil it. Don't be shy, we really don't want these to stick.

Our pot/pan wasn't big enough to contain the 10 cups of water, so we halved the water and baking soda. This is 5 cups of water and a third of a cup baking soda. Bring this to a rolling boil.

Lightly oil your work surface, then put your pretzel dough on it.

I used my pizza cutter to cut the dough into 8 approximately equal dough balls.

Roll a snake

Cross the ends

Twist em

Then bring em down. Easy as pie.

Place them on your prepped sheet pans while they await their baths. Make whatever shapes you want. This is kitchen anarchy, yo.

Make hubs deal with putting the pretzels, one by one, into the boiling baking soda solution.

Keep them there for 30 seconds.

Make your egg wash using an egg yolk and a tablespoon of water.

Oh yeah, That's good.

Brush your egg wash on your steaming pretzels. PS RIP peace sign pretzel. 

I don't have pretzel salt, so I used kosher salt. I have no regrets.

Ready for the hot box!

Bake until a rich mahogany color. 12-14 minutes. I swapped pans halfway through the cook time so that the top rack wasn't left burnt and the bottom pale. It was a very good choice.

OMG DON'T THESE LOOK AMAZING

Letting these cool for the required 5 minutes hurt my soul. Deeply.

SOON.

These were delicious! They looked and tasted exactly like the pretzels I've enjoyed while in Germany. Better than any of the ones I've bought as concession stands, where they tend to always taste stale and soapy. The recipe was pretty easy, with the only semi-stressful portion being the water/baking soda bath, and though the process takes a bit, it's definitely nowhere near as nerve-wracking as folding egg whites into something. 

Pair with mustard, marinara, or cheese sauce. Or just stuff them all in your face. No judgement here. You could do cheese pretzels, cinnamon sugar, rosemary and garlic.... it's like pizza. You can put prettymuch whatever you want on these and it's still going to be fantastic. Also, try making sticks, nuggets, or dinosaurs while shaping them, but keep in mind that any thin spots on the dough will probably break while in the bath. People who left reviews said that these also made delicious pretzel buns, so keep that in mind.

Imma go eat my pretzels now.

Nomnomnomnomnom,

Katie.