Soft Pretzels

A benefit of being a stay at home, pregnant wife who cooks is you usually have the basic baking needs at hand so when I random craving comes along you can make it. This is what happened to me last week. I was going to go nuts if I didn't get a pretzel so I decided to make my own! It was fairly easy and between my husband and I, the six pretzels were gone before they got cold.

1 cup milk

1 package active dry yeast

3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing

1 teaspoon fine salt

1/3 cup baking soda

2 tablespoons coarse salt

Warm milk in a sauce pan until it is 110 degrees. Pour milk into a mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast on top and let it sit for two minutes. Add brown sugar and one cup of flour. Mix until combined. Soften two tablespoons of butter and add that to the mix. Stir together and add the rest of the flour. When the mixture is combined, place on a floured surface and knead for five minutes. Let the dough rise for an hour in a greased bowl.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a cookie sheet. When dough is ready, punch it down to deflate it and then divide it into six pieces. Roll and stretch each piece into a 30 inch rope and then form into a pretzel.

In a shallow bowl dissolve baking soda in two cups of water. Dip each pretzel in the water and place on the greased pan.  Add salt on top of the pretzel if desired.

Bake for 12 minutes.

Optional: Melt the rest of the butter and dip hot pretzels in it.

Recipe from Food Network