Apple Pie Stuffed Soft Pretzels With Streusel

Submitted by CobraLimes

"This came from a request on our Request a Recipe board. My experiment incorporated KimmieOH's (recipe #45567) and Sharon123's (recipe #48766) recipes and I'd like to thank both of them. The recipe looks more complicated than it is. There are quite a few steps, but each one is simple and not as time consuming as it appears and most can be done ahead of time. If you prefer a sweeter pretzel you can try a different type of apple (I liked the tartness of the Granny Smith's). Also, I added the pecans as my personal preference, but they can be omitted. I think the results came out great. Hope you do, too."

 

• Ready In: 50mins
• Ingredients: 20
• Yields: 8 large pretzels

ingredients

• Dough

• 12.32 ml yeast
• 14.79 ml sugar
• 236.59 ml warm water
• 354.88 ml all-purpose flour
• 354.88 ml bread flour
• 2.46 ml salt
• 29.58 ml vegetable oil

• Filling

• 3 small granny smith apples
• 14.79 ml butter
• 29.58 ml brown sugar
• 2.46 ml cinnamon
• 0.25 ml ground cloves

• Streusel

• 118.29 ml flour
• 118.29 ml brown sugar
• 1.23 ml cinnamon
• 59.16 ml butter
• 118.29 ml finely chopped pecans

• Additional ingredients

• 78.78 ml baking soda
• 473.18 ml water
• 1 egg white

directions

1. To prepare dough:

2. Proof yeast and the 1 TBS sugar in the 1 cup of warm water and allow to rest for 5 minutes until foamy.
3. Mix the flours with 1/2 teaspoons salt and 2 TBS oil in bowl and then add proofed yeast mixture.
4. Stir to form a shaggy dough.
5. Place onto lightly floured surface and knead for 2-3 minutes until a smooth, but slightly sticky dough is formed.
6. Place into a greased bowl, covered with plastic wrap, and let sit until doubled (45-60 minutes).
7. While waiting for the dough to rise prepare filling and streusel.

8. To prepare filling:

9. Peel, core, and thinly (1/4" thick) slice the apples and then cut each slice into 8 pieces (I used my peeler/corer/slicer all in one contraption).
10. Saute the apple pieces with 1/2 of the TBS of butter, the 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and the pinch of cloves until the apples are tender, but not mushy.
11. Remove from heat and stir in the additional 1/2 TBS of butter.

12. To prepare streusel:

13. Mix the flour, sugar, and cinnamon together.
14. With fork cut in the 4 TBS of butter to a crumb consistency.
15. Stir in the chopped pecans.
16. When dough has risen, punch down, place on lightly floured board, and cut into 8 equal pieces.
17. With hands, roll each piece into a 15" long cylinder.
18. Flatten the cylinder down with a rolling pin to measure 3" wide by 17" long.
19. Place 1 1/2 TBS of the filling mixture along the length of each piece and fold the long edge over to meet the other side.
20. Pinch along the seam to thoroughly enclose the filling.
21. Roll the dough with your hands to form an even cylinder and fully encapsulate the filling.
22. Take the two ends of each filled cylinder and form into a circle that is overlapped by a couple of inches of dough on either side, twist the ends and lay over the opposite side to form a pretzel shape and press to seal.
23. Play with the shape a bit to get the right form and then place each one on a parchment or Silpat lined cookie sheet.
24. Repeat for all 8 pieces.
25. Allow to rise on cookie sheet for 15 minutes.
26. While they are rising, boil 2 cups of water and add 1/3 cup of baking soda.
27. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
28. Beat 1 egg white with 1 TBS water and lay it on a flat plate.
29. Lay the streusel topping on a flat plate, too.
30. When the pretzels have fully risen, drop one at a time into the boiling water and count to 10.
31. Remove with a large slotted spatula/spoon to slightly drain and then drop onto the egg white, turn to coat, then drop into the streusel and turn to coat.
32. Lay each completed pretzel back on the lined cookie sheet.
33. Repeat this procedure until all pretzels are done.
34. Place into the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes (check on them at 12 minutes).
35. Immediately remove from cookie sheets and place on racks to cool.
36. *Note:I haven't including the rising time in the"Time To Make" category, but there are two rises for this dough.
37. The first is 45-60 minutes and the second is 15 minutes.
38. The recipe is written to make use of the rising times for preparing the filling and streusel.

Reviews

[AmberPav]

Made these this morning and they turned out FANTASTIC! I substituted peaches for apples, delicious. Next time I think I will double the filling...... maybe it was the peaches, but I only had enough to fill 4. I also did not have bread flour, so I used 3 cups of all purpose flour..... and they still turned out great! I am going to buy some bread flour for next time........ and trust me there will be a next time;)

 

[Tinkerbell]

Absolutely delicious! Worth every second of it! I love granny smith apples & pecans, so I used both of those options. The instructions are well written, but the brown sugar in the filling does not appear in the directions so when I realized it I threw it into the nearly cooked pan of apples. I don't think anything suffered from this late addition though. Made exactly as directed, but there is definitely a learning curve to rolling pretzels with filling. My first one was a total disaster & when I tried to cook it anyway it fell completely apart. My method for getting well-formed pretzels turned out to be simply putting the filling on the dough along the edge closest to me. Then I was able to begin rolling the dough up over the filling & then make at least one, sometimes two more, wraps to fully encase the filling. I am no stranger to tedious jobs, cooking or not, but I have to admit this was a little more work than I expected it to be. I think from start to finish it took me approximately 2-1/2 hours. I do make pretzels often but have never made any stuffed ones. In the future I will just double the batch & make a day of it, maybe try to freeze some, and I will cut the apples into smaller than eight pieces each. I also used my Pampered Chef Apple/Peeler, Corer/Slicer. Thanks for sharing, CobraLimes! Made & enjoyed for Fall 2009 PAC-O.

 

[yellow_apple30]

Amazing!! These turned out spectacularly well, and I was nervous because the finished rolled pretzels looked like my 3 year old did them. It didn't matter if there were thin spots in my dough, or if the filling started poking through. The second rise puffed the dough enough to cover. I did the granny smith filling sans pecans because they were way expensive here. I'd like to try them with, though. Yes, this was time consuming. But now that I've been through the rolling process, I can probably speed it up next time. Long baking processes like this are relaxing to me, so even if I knew I had to dedicate another entire morning to the process, I totally would. The finished product was perfect--they tasted like stuffed pretzels, not an apple pastry. The top and bottoms were crunchy, and the middles soft. Perfect! Thanks for posting!

 

[Scarlett516]

These were delicious! It took me a total of about 2½ hours, but I'm not fast at rolling pretzels and that was where I lost a lot of time. I had some apple pretzels a couple of years ago when I went apple picking and really wanted some again. These really hit the spot. Thank you!