Day 51 - Pretzels

     Today I made pretzels with my eldest daughter.  I found the recipe on the Food Network website for Alton Brown's Homemade Soft Pretzels.  They received one of the highest ratings and looked really good and pretty easy, so why not?  It's something we've never done and we've always loved pretzels from Auntie Anne's and Wetzel's Pretzels.  They're always so yummy!  So, knowing how good those were, I really tried to not go into today's recipe with any expectations (heehee, remember yesterday?).
     I have to say that it was a lot of fun making these and they really didn't take that long either.  The only thing that took the most time was waiting for the dough to rise for the hour or so.  And the one thing that was kind of confusing was flipping the dough around after holding it in a u-shape.  They make it look so easy at those pretzel places.  The first one came out perfectly and then I don't know what happened, I was over thinking it, I think and trying to hard.  I have a tendency to do that.
     My daughter was also taking some of the pictures.  Enjoy!

Sugar, salt, water, yeast, flour, butter before rising.

 

After rising for 55 minutes.

Dough separated into 8 equal pieces and rolled into a 24-inch rope.

Holding the ends, making the U shape, and twisting.

Bringing the ends down to the bottom of the U.

Shaping.

Still shaping.

TA DA!!

On the parchment paper before being boiled.

Boiling in water and baking soda for 30 seconds.

Removal from the boiling water with two spatulas.

The ones on the right have been boiled; they are puffier and bigger.

Brushed with egg yolk before baking.

The finished product with some honey mustard sauce - 1/2 honey, 1/2 Dijon mustard.

     These were absolutely delicious.  They had a nice crispy crust on the outside and were really soft on the inside.  The middles smelled really good, too!  I didn't use pretzel salt, but used coarse sea salt and we all really liked that, too.  What a great project this would be over vacation with the kids.  I'm sure they'll really like them and have fun being in the kitchen.  Mine certainly did!
     The rating for Alton Brown's Homemade Soft Pretzels is 3½ rolling pins!  My rolling pin rating is based on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being the absolute best.
     Happy baking!