Rollin Dough with the Sweetie

During the holidays Leann and I have been doing a lot of cooking instead, and for Thanksgiving, we had decided to make pretzels for everyone to much one.  One of my favorite things from the Philly trip were the Philly pretzels, in fact they were so good that I made Leann bring back a ton when she was visiting her mom near Halloween.  Now I knew her mom had a recipe for pretzels but this were a different breed of pretzel.  The recipe is simple and listed below.

1 pkg active dry yeast

¼ cup warm water

2 ½ cups flour

¼ teasp. Salt

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons cold water

Coarse Salt

In a separate bowl

Mix together yeast and warm water

Put flour and the regular salt in a large bowl

Pour in yeast mixture

And half of the water (1/2 cup plus 1 Tablespoon)

Kneed to form dough

Put dough in a bowl covered to sit for 30 min,

Sit in cold oven or microwave to avoid drafts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees In separate bowl stir together baking soda and remain water (1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon)

Punch down dough and divide into 8 pieces

Roll into a 12 inch rope and twist into pretzel shape

Dip in baking soda solution

Place on slightly greased baking sheet 2 inches apart

Sprinkle on course salt

Bake until golden brown  15-20 min.

Remove from oven and cool slightly on wire racks (serve warm)

Dip  in melted butter if desired

Now the night before Thanksgiving, we wanted to make sure that our pretzels didn't taste like dog bones so we gave the recipe a practice run. 

Flour was everywhere and our kitchen ended up looking like a scene from Scarface. 

One Pretzel - Stache Please

After playing around, we put one last masterpiece together and dipped the dough in the baking soda solution.

The cooking time was about 18 minutes, and the house was starting to smell like a bread factory, with the finished product looking nice and golden brown.  

Leann and I added butter to the pretzels and thought there were delicious, and we knew we would be ready for Thanksgiving.  For Thanksgiving we ended up going with a cheese sauce, a la cheese wiz, that was just marvelous.  This was an easy recipe, and recommended for an appetizer or a snack.