Soft Pretzels

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by Jun 11th, 2010 // Kid-tastic, Picky Busters, Recipes, Snacks

Soft Pretzels

My friend, Jaime, who runs the super popular, awesome blog Prudent Baby gave me the idea to make pretzels with my kid. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this. (When I lived in NY, I was known for harassing the street vendors to make sure my weekly soft pretzel was hot!) In searching for the perfect pretzel recipe, I wanted a nice crunchy outside and a soft chewy inside. I found this Alton Brown version which included the extra step of boiling the pretzels before baking them. I thought this might do the trick, and it did!

The great thing about this dough is that it’s not sticky so my kid and I had a lot of fun with it without the fear of it sticking to the table. We started by making really long snakes and then created all different shapes. My kid even made a pretzel necklace! Besides the fun of making the shapes, painting the egg wash and sprinkling the salt were also highlights. Now for the recipe…

Homemade Soft Pretzel Recipe from Alton Brown / Food Network

Prep Time: 1 1/2 hours (mostly unattended)  Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 package active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil
10 cups water
2/3 cup baking soda
1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Pretzel salt

Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.

Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.

Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Soft Pretzels

Soft Pretzels are served!

19 Comments on “Soft Pretzels”

  1. 1.) minxo55
    June 11th, 2010

    omg yum

  2. 2.) Ashley O
    June 11th, 2010

    been seeing a lot of pretzel recipes lately and I'm thinking I'd better make some already!

  3. 3.) Jacinda
    June 11th, 2010

    I remember making pretzels in 7th grade home-Ec. It was so much fun! I also remember eating LOTS of them at highschool hockey games… with yellow mustard. The best! Ah, so many great pretzel memories. They look great. SO hungry.

  4. 4.) Nicole
    June 11th, 2010

    YUMMM!

  5. 5.) misti
    June 11th, 2010

    Yum! This looks perfect and delicious! Love the dough necklace.

  6. 6.) Karla
    June 14th, 2010

    Yummy, eating ours now! Thanks for the inspiration!

  7. 7.) sarah vine
    July 29th, 2010

    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=193469&… A few photos (not nearly as good as yours!) from our own pretzel making day, yesterday. Thank you! The recipe is totally delicious, too. x

  8. 8.) CookingWithMyKid
    July 30th, 2010

    Love it! So cute.

  9. 9.) julie
    August 1st, 2010

    hi there,
    am i missing something? what is the first ingredient? i ADORE your website. thank you, thank you, thank you.

  10. 10.) julie
    August 2nd, 2010

    sorry, just figured out it must be water.

  11. 11.) fugatz
    August 2nd, 2010

    I'm so glad you like it! Water is the first ingredient.
    Did you make the pretzels? I hope they came out great!

  12. 12.) julie
    August 5th, 2010

    funny i posted it to my facebook page and my friend told me that the recipe didn't actually say how to use the baking soda. i didn't even get that far. being pregnant with twins durning this hot summer has me surfing cool sites rather than actually doing the cooking. i did promise my daughter that we would make these. thanks for a GREAT website. i've thoroughly enjoyed all of your postings.

  13. 13.) CookingWithMyKid
    August 5th, 2010

    So glad you like it! Tell your friend that even though you are preggo with twins, you haven't lost your mind. The recipe does say how to use the baking soda. ;+)
    Here's the scoop: Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

  14. 14.) Jill
    October 30th, 2010

    yum, yum, yum! We just served these for lunch with soup. AND OH MY GOODNESS, I can't stop eating them! This one is going into the recipe book for SURE!

  15. [...] streets of NYC. It was bigger than my kid’s head! My kid liked it, but decided he prefers the homemade soft pretzel recipe we made ourselves. Regardless, it got me thinking, do others like street food as much as we [...]

  16. 16.) jaime
    December 17th, 2010

    just made. deelish.

  17. [...] my kid has been begging to remake the Soft Pretzel Recipe we posted a while back. We’ve been talking about all the shapes we could try. After writing [...]

  18. [...] last project was making pretzel ‘H’s. I made the dough ahead of time and had the kids roll out strips and shape them into upper-and lower-case letters. [...]

  19. [...] Many things can be made with these “snakes.” There’s coffee mugs if you’re using clay and pretzels if you’re using dough, but we’re talking Christmas here, so we’ll concentrate on my [...]

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