Over the past few months, I have been learning to make our breads and pastry from scratch. It’s one of the ways we can save money and be sure that the ingredients we are eating are local and organic. We use organic wheat flour from King Arthur Flour. I really appreciate that this company is employee owned and in Vermont.

So, I have learned how to make our bread, hamburger rolls, pizza dough and today I tried pretzels for the first time.

First mix up the flour and yeast portion of the recipe and let it rise over night covered with plastic wrap. I let it rise 18 hours and it was bubbly and a bit sticky, but easy to work with.

   

The next part of the instructions: put dough on floured surface, separate into 9 pieces and let rise 2 minutes. Once that is done – roll out the pieces, shape like a pretzel…

Drop into boiling water & baking soda for 30 seconds. This was challenging and where I lost the shape a bit – I used my hands to drop them in and definitely need to use a spoon or something else because they stuck to my hands.

When they are all boiled for 30 seconds, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 15 minutes at 450F and I cooled them on cookie racks. These are the pretty ones.

Some are just lumps =)

I tried one with some mustard and even the lumpy ones will be delicious!

The instructions are fairly simple, but my skill level with making the pretzel shape will definitely take some practice! I envision many different ways these can be made – from additional spices, etc. in the dough to the many, many things they could be topped with.

Let me know if you try this one!

Much Love,
Michele