Soft Pretzels

These beauties were made by my friend Jenny (my batch burned!)

A couple of friends and I love to get together and try new and old recipes and while our kids run around screaming together about once a month. It is a lot of fun and I have learned a lot of things from them over the past year since we started. This month it was my turn to host and I decided to try soft pretzels. I was too scared to shape them by myself because I am a baby so it was perfect to get some friends involved to try it together. After reading waaaay too many recipes, reviews, etc here is what we came up with. The recipe is based on Allrecipes but got changed and tweaked a lot with help from a lot of other recipes and reviews I read, including Alton Brown's recipe.

Soft Pretzels

3 tsp active dry yeast
3 Tbs white sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees)
3 1/2-4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbs vital wheat gluten
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbs vegetable oil

Boil bath:
1/4 cup baking soda
8 cups water

Egg wash (optional):
1 egg yolk
1 Tbs water

Toppings:
Butter
Sea Salt for sprinkling
Cinnamon/Sugar for sprinkling

Dip in:
Cheese sauce
Pizza sauce
Roasted Garlic dip (try this link)

In a small bowl dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let proof for about 5-10 minutes.

In a large bowl mix 3 cups of flour, salt, and vital wheat gluten. Make a well, add the oil and yeast mixture. Gradually add more flour a 1/2 cup at a time until the mix is soft and not too sticky. I ended up just adding about 3 3/4 cups.

Knead dough until smooth, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover with a damp towel. Let the dough rise in a draft-free place for 1- 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or oil well with cooking spray. The best is to use a silicon baking sheet. In a large saucepan put 8 cups of water and 1/4 cup baking soda on the burner to start boiling.

Take your dough ball and lightly pat it into a small circle- just about a foot in diameter or so. With a pizza cutter divide dough into eight even slices (like a pizza!). Or, if you want smaller pretzels, you can divide into 10, 12, or even 16 balls of dough. Next time I will probably roll mine out thinner and do 10 or 12 instead of 8 fat ones.

Keep your dough covered with a damp towel as you work with each ball of dough, to keep it from drying out. Roll each dough ball into about a two foot long "rope".

One pretzel rolled out to about 2 feet long

Now shape your pretzels. If you are like me you have no idea how to shape a pretzel, so I searched around a lot and came up with this method:

Cross your rope at top

Twist one more time

Pull the top ends of your rope down and push gently into the circular part of your pretzel and fix it as needed.

One at a time boil your pretzels in the baking soda water for about 20-30 seconds, and place on your oiled or parchment lined baking sheet. I found it hard to flip them so I just put them in the water and scooped boiling water of the top instead of flipping them halfway through the time.

If you want the tops of your pretzels to be shiny then use the egg wash. In a small bowl beat egg yolk and water together with a fork until well combined and frothy to make egg wash. Brush each pretzel lightly with the egg wash solution, and if desired sprinkle with sea salt or any large granule salt.

Let your pretzels rise/rest for about 10 minutes.

Bake until golden brown for about 10-14 minutes. This will largely depend on your oven, check as early as 8 minutes to see how things are progressing. My oven cooks hot and fast so I had burned my pretzels at 10 minutes! Ouch!

Enjoy with just salt, or dip in butter when it gets out of the oven and dip in cinnamon sugar, or dip in cheese dip!