You haven’t had a pretzel until you’ve had a warm sourdough Philly pretzel fresh from the oven with mustard on the side. DELISH. Find a Pretzel Factory near you soon!
A close second… are the pretzels at the Stoltzfus Bakery located in the Farmers Market in Williamstown, NJ- please stop by this place and bring your wallet because there is money to spent. The fresh squeezed strawberry lemonade and Cajun crab dip are also highly recommended.
Last but not least is Auntie Annes at the mall. Which I don’t get to often because I’m an internet shopper, I hate the crowds. My favs are the original, cinnamon sugar and the hot dog pretzel isn’t bad either.
So in a quest to avoid long lines, save money and reduce the amount of artificial colors/flavors/preservatives and everything else we can find in our food. I present to you “Soft Pretzel Day”. (please note that this is not a real day and you will not receive paid time off from work for celebrating this day with me)
I was browsing King Arthur’s Website and under their favorite recipes I found one for soft pretzels and I figured, why not.
So lets do this.
Add all the ingredients to the mixer and watch as it shapes into a ball like this. Dough should be warm and soft to touch. I love my mixer, it makes my life so easy.
Lightly flour the ball and seal in a plastic bag for 30 minutes.
While the dough is “resting”, (which I don’t know why the dough needs to rest it hasn’t done any work today…corny joke. I cant help myself sometimes), Mix up the baking soda and water solution.
Divide the dough into equal parts. I didn’t measure them out like the recipe “suggested”.
Now I’ve watched the folks at Auntie Anne’s roll out pretzels and I tried to mimic their techniques.
Roll one ball of dough out using both hands and form a cylinder shape , the longer the dough the bigger the pretzel. Once you reach your desired length pull both ends of the dough together to form a U.
Cross them over each other and press into the bottom of the U. Here’s what mine looked like. Not too shabby if I say so myself.
Let them take another rest and then give them a dip in the baking soda bath
Sprinkle with pretzel salt. I used sea salt and I covered some of them with Asiago Cheese…..Mmmmmm Me Love Cheese (in my cookie monster voice).
After some time in the oven. Boom, Bam these things look delicious. Auntie Anne would be impressed.
Brush with melted Butta! Something this good deserves melted butta not butter. No margarine here. No ma’am.
Let cool and then devour. I dipped them in mustard but I’m sure some melted aged cheese like the stuff used for nachos at the fair would taste good with these.
FYI: I also froze some. I cooked them for 6 minutes, added the butta, let them cool and popped them in a freezer bag. I’ll re-heat them in the oven when I’m ready. Also I thought it would be cool to make pretzel bites too.
Here’s the link to the recipe. Let me know how yours turn out.
sugarbeefactory 