Making Soft Pretzels

Yesterday afternoon my kiddos and I made soft pretzels. However, most of the credit goes to my wonderful Mom who brought this big box of ingredients and her bread machine to school! I would have made the dough ahead of time, but seeing it involved yeast, it really had to be a fresh batch.

My Mom set up her bread machine in the school office, added all the ingredients, and let the bread machine do its duty. There was no way we could have gotten this accomplished any other way. Thanks a bunch, Mom!!!!

Here is the original recipe. Obviously, if you have a bread machine, it is MUCH easier to use that instead! It will definitely save you time :D

Ingredients:

1-1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1-1/2 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. butter
Coarse salt

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yest in warm water. Add sugar and salt. Stir in flour, 1/2 cup at a time, to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes (dough will be sticky). Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down and divide into six portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 14-in. rope; twist into a pretzel shape. Place on greased baking sheets. Brush with butter; sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks. Serve warm.

Yields: 6 pretzels (we only made 5 so they got pretty huge!)

Getting ready to make their pretzels

The dough was very soft and squishy, so rolling out this dough wasn't quite as easy as rolling out the play dough the other week!

We basically stretched out the dough like this to make it long enough to form the pretzel shape.

Making pretzel shapes was a little challenging, but they still tried!

Their finished pretzel shapes

I spread melted butter and sprinkled salt on top of them, then placed them in the oven.

They definitely got pretty huge when they were finally done baking! That black stuff would be the burnt butter that had dripped off the pretzels while baking. The kitchen was definitely filled with the burnt butter aroma...and so was my hair and clothes...but oh well! It was all worth it in the end :D

They were DELICIOUS!!