Pretzels

Danielle K.'s Note:

I just love these things. I can't ever get enough of them so I figured I'd share the recipe with you guys.

• Total Time: 41 mins
• Prep Time: 35 mins
• Cook Time: 6 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 12

• 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 cups bread flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• coarse salt (optional)
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted (optional)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, combine yeast and warm water.
2. Let stand for 5 minutes while you prepare the next step.
3. In a large bowl, place the brown sugar, 1 cup flour and the yeast mixture (when it is ready).
4. Mix well.
5. Then, stir in enough of the all-purpose flour to make a soft dough.
6. Turn dough onto a well-floured surface and knead for about 3 minutes.
7. Cover and let rest 20 minutes.
8. Cut dough into 12 pieces.
9. Roll each into a 12-15-inch long rope and shape into pretzels.
10. In a shallow bowl, add 1 tablespoon baking soda to 1 cup water.
11. Dip each finished pretzel shape quickly into water, shaking off excess.
12. Place immediately on greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt (if desired).
13. Bake at 475 degrees for 6 minutes or until golden brown.
14. Remove from pan quickly and serve with melted butter brushed on top, or with your favorite dip.

Reviews

[russ909090]

After trying an Aunt you know who copycat recipe, I changed my mind and have updated my review of this recipe. With with a little modification of this recipe I will be using this one from now on. Use a total of 3 1/2 cups of BREAD FLOUR. to make your dough and it should come out alright. 5 star taste minus one star for the fouled up instructions. It also turns out just as good if you skip steps 1 & 2 and just throw all of the dough ingredients into a bread machine and run it through the "first rise" cycle, remove the dough and then divide, dip, and bake as instructed.

Old review below:
Complete and total disappointment. The ingredients list calls for TWO cups of BREAD FLOUR. The instructions state to use ONE cup of flour at first and then add enough ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR to make the dough soft. All-purpose flour was never called for in the ingredients list. I had to wing it after using both cups of the original bread flour and ended up with a gooey mess of frustration. I ended up adding about another cup and a half of bread flour to get usable dough out of this mess. Once I had come up with a nice lump of dough and formed up my pretzels, they actually came out of the oven smelling and tasting very good. I'm not a professional cook and "winging it" is not something I had in mind when I told the kids that we were going to make pretzels. One star for the recipe after eating a nice warm pretzel and calming down. I'll keep the other four stars for myself since I had to make this mess work with my hands covered with something that resembled hot used bubblegum.

[weezie82]

First time I made pretzels and they came out great. Easy to do. Thanks

[luvcarbs]

This is a great recipe. Like other reviewers, it needed more bread flour and water to balance out the mixture. The dough should be a little tacky; I used a stand mixer with a dough hook to mix. On a second run I added 1/2 a cup of brown sugar to up the sweetness a little bit and oh boy were they good. Try a cinnamon-sugar mixture with the butter topping OR coil the strips and use the roll-like shapes after cooking as a burger bun...SO GOOD!