Pretzel Balls

Mike loves big soft pretzels. It's his gameday routine at any baseball, basketball, football, or hockey game. His night is just not complete unless he gets his pretzel. I decided to try and give it a shot and make a nice snack for sitting on the couch and watching a game or a mid-day treat on the weekend. I never really considered making pretzels before because I figured it would be too hard and virtually impossible for my uncoordinated self to whip up something that even remotely resembled  pretzel. When I stumbled upon the idea of pretzel bites, I was sold. While I was wrong in assuming it is difficult to make pretzels, I failed to consider the fact that it is just one big giant pain in the ass. Luckily, the final product was well worth it but this won't be something I'll be making once a week...I say that now but man, these little buggers were good so I'm sure I could be easily convinced to give it another go!


Pretzel Balls

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 package active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cups baking soda
10 cups water
1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
pretzel salt or coarse sea salt
cooking spray

1. Combine warm water, sugar, and salt into the bowl a stand mixer and sprinkle yeast on top. Let sit for about 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam.

2. Add flour and butter. With dough hook, mix on a low speed until well combined. Switch to medium speed and knead until dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 4-5 minutes.

3. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and spray with cooking spray. Put dough back into sprayed bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place for about 50-55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

5. Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in a large pot.

6. Pretzel balls/bites: divide dough into 4 pieces. Roll out each piece into a rope that is about 24 inches long. Cut the rope into 1-inch slices and set slices aside.
    Twisted Pretzels: divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll out each piece into a rope that is about 24 inches long. Create a U-shape with the dough, twist like a pretzel and press the loose ends down into the bottom of the U.

7. Put dough slices into the boiling water, a few at a time for 30 seconds. Remove them from water with a large flat spatula or slotted spoon. Put on to cookie sheet, brush the tops of each with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture. Sprinkle with pretzel/sea salt.

8. Bake until golden brown, about 12-14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for about 5 minutes because they will be hot! We enjoyed them with some honey mustard. They store well in a plastic bag in the fridge and heat up really nicely at 400 for just a couple of minutes.

Original recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe/index.html


AEM