Recipe: Whole Wheat Pretzels

 

Pretzels are kind of my favorite snack... During exam season I eat about 3 bags of classic Snyders #noshame. The mall has an Auntie Em's and those classic soft pretzels are what I live for. I had been wanting for the longest time to bake some soft pretzels of my own... So, because it's Summertime, I did! Here's the recipe so you can make your own :)

*adapted from Sprinkle Me Sugar's recipe

Ingredients:

2 1/4 tsp dry yeast 

1 cup warm water

1 tbs olive oil

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

3 cups whole wheat all-purpose flour + up to 3/4 cup more if needed

  2 cups water

4 tbs baking soda

1 tbs coarse salt, for sprinkling on top (but not the big rock crystal things... WAY too salty! Looks great in pictures, but does not taste good at all!)
6 tbs melted butter

Preheat to 475 degrees

Use the hook attachment of your stand mixer, and mix together yeast, warm water and sugar. Once the mixture looks a little frothy, your yeast is ready! Add the other ingredients, and pour flour in one cup at a time. Your mixture should start to form a dough at this point. Now, you should knead the dough. Knead for about 5 minutes and form the dough into a ball. Place the dough ball back in the mixing ball and let it sit for 15 minutes. 

In a medium sized pot, boil the water and baking soda. Once the baking soda is mostly dissolved, take the mixture off of heat and let it cool to a lukewarm temperature. 

When the dough has sat out for 15 minutes, flatten the dough with your hand. Cut it into 8 sections (cut it like you cut a pizza) and roll each section into the shape of a snake. Then twist it into a pretzel shape. 

The water/baking soda mixture that you boiled earlier should be lukewarm by now. Next, put pretzel in the baking soda mixture for two minutes. Use a spoon to make sure that all parts of the pretzel are covered by the baking soda bath. Repeat until every pretzel gets two minutes in the mixture. 

Place the pretzels on a baking pan for 8-9 minutes

As soon as the pretzels get out of the oven, brush them with melted butter. Sprinkle a small amount of salt on the pretzels and serve hot and fresh!