Project Welcome Home With Pretzels (WHP)

The big kids are coming home tomorrow, so I hauled out my trusty soft-pretzel recipe (it’s also a decent “in-a-pinch” bagel recipe!) this afternoon to whip some up for Elisheva, because it’s been impossible to find the frozen kind in the stores lately. 

Okay, not just for Elisheva; also for me.  I love these!

Here I am, rolling the snake, twisting and flipping it into the classic pretzel shape!  Easy as pretzels!

pretzelanim 

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Waiting under the fruit-fly umbrella… sigh.  I hate those things!  The good news is that they’re almost gone!

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Dip in the solution.  I don’t measure, just dump baking soda into this pan of warm water.

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Then bake – they only need about 7 minutes! 

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They come out of the oven looking dry, but when they’re cool enough, you dip them in butter and they turn shiny.

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The recipe yielded ten pretzels for me, but next time I’m going to try harder to divide the dough into 12 portions.  It could go further and I prefer a skinny, as opposed to puffy pretzel (bagels, too; much prefer skinny with a big hole to puffy and cakey).

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The best part about bread blogging is getting to eat the results while revisiting the process.  Mmm…  Easy, fast and fun.  I wouldn’t change a thing about these.

I know from past experience that they are not AS wonderful the second day, but being a proper yeast dough, they’re not terrible… and they usually don’t last that long around here anyway.

In summation, I officially declare Project WHP a success!

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