Making homemade pretzels

The last two days have been extremely busy. I started working, and I'm honestly been unable to sit in front of the computer and type. I haven't checked email, nothing. Thursday there was a massive power outage, but luckily my house was spared.

I've received my new cutting mat, and my new crochet borders book, but unfortunately my sewing machine bobbin spinner is broken. The sewing machine shop says it would cost over $50 to fix! I'm going to have to mess around with it myself a bit before I can even think of doing that. For now, I'm working on my crochet blanket.

Now, on to how to make pretzels! This was SO EASY and really satisfying.

You need :

1. 1 1/2 cups warm water
2. 1 tablespoon sugar
3. 2 teaspoons kosher salt
4. 1 package active dry yeast
5. 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
6. 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
7. Vegetable oil
8. 10 cups water
9. 2/3 cup baking soda
10. 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
11. Pretzel salt or coarse kosher salt

First, put the warm water, sugar, kosher salt (from #3), and yeast in your mixing bowl and let sit for about 5-10 minutes. You should be able to see a difference in your yeast. You can see how mine was a bit bubbly.

Then, add flour and butter directly to the bowl and mix with your kneading mixing attachment until it pulls away and is formed into a ball.

Next, I took it out of the bowl, washed out the bowl (you can just use another large bowl if you don't want to do the washing now), coated the bowl with vegetable oil, and placed the dough in the bowl. I covered it with saran wrap, and put in outside (anywhere warm works), for about an hour.

Before

After (I love before and after pictures of dough rising. Its so satisfying)

After the hour, take a large pot an boil the 10 cups of water with the baking soda. While you are waiting for it to boil, take out the dough and knead it again on an oiled surface. Once you feel like the air bubbles are out, cut the dough into 8 equal pieces. Preheat your oven to 450.

At this point you can shape your pretzels any way you like. I rolled out a few snakes of dough and made twists. Some I left large and made into pretzel shapes. Once you shape your pretzels, drop them in the boiling water for about 30 seconds. Basically you want to wait for the pretzel to rise to the top of the water and puff a bit.

Once you boil, pick them out of the water with a slotted spoon, and place on a baking sheet with parchment paper, or the beloved Silpat. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my silpats. Get some! You never have to use cooking spray, which I hate, and they wash clean with just a bit of water.

Finally, coat with your egg yolk and water mixture, sprinkle the pretzel or kosher salt, and bake for 12-14 minutes.

I made two batches of these so far. They are SUPER easy and delicious. I made some for small get together here at my house and a friend commented "these are the best pretzels I have ever eaten". He was shocked that I had made them myself! For that batch I shaped them like mini bagels and served with 2 different types of mustard.

Readers, whoever you are out there, try this recipe! Its really worth it. I think I will make this over and over again.