Who doesn’t like a nice warm pretzel?

Time: 1 Hour 30 minutes

Ingredient Availability: 5/5

Difficulty: 1/5

While the crunchy, deep brown pretzels available in bags in every grocery store are nice, there’s something extra special about a hot and soft pretzel. There’s a reason why Auntie Annie’s and Wetzel’s Pretzels are so popular. I found this recipe in King Arthur’s Baker’s Companion Cookbook, but I found a similar recipe on their website here. I sure hope they turn out well.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

The ingredients in this recipe are about as simple as it gets for a yeasted bread. You shouldn’t have any issues finding any of these ingredients.

Tools:

• Stand Mixer

• Bowl(s)

Cooking Review:

Making Dough: 10 minutes

To make the dough, I combined all of the ingredients in the bowl of my stand mixer until combined before letting the hook attachment knead the dough on speed 4 for 5 minutes. In all honesty, I forgot to add the yeast until the last minute of kneading. Hopefully, this doesn’t ruin the product.

Rise, divide, form, and rest: 1 hour 10 minutes

I put the dough into a greased bowl to rise/rest for 30 minutes. I then split the dough into 8 similarly sized balls. I let the balls rest for 5 minutes before rolling out into long thin rods and forming into pretzel shapes, which took about 9 minutes. The pretzels were then dipped in a bowl with sugar dissolved in water and transferred to parchment lined baking sheets and sprinkled with salt. They were left to rest for 10 minutes. I melted the butter during this time.

Baking and Finishing: 14 minutes

I baked the pretzels or 11 minutes, turning the baking sheets half way though. Once they were done, I basted them with the melted butter.

Analysis:

These are one of those foods that get better the more you eat them. They have a nice crisp exterior with a soft and chewy interior. The butter and salt provide a nice flavor on the outside while the bread actually has a pretty good flavor despite being a fairly quick/short rise. With each bite, the flavors intensify and become more intoxicating. Once you’re done, you’ll probably want to go for another one. This recipe is super easy and quick (for a bread). I think it’s a great snack for any time of the day. I’m going to give this recipe a 9/10. I think that if the flavor was just a little more complex and deep it could add that extra point, but maybe it doesn’t really need it anyway.