Twisted: Part 1

I was finally able to check off one of my blideas (blog ideas) this week, I have been wanting to do this one for a while now, so I was really excited about (drum roll please)..... PRETZELS!!  I come from a long line of pretzel lovers, my dad is even known to eat an entire bag of the crunchy salty treats in one sitting or a drive home from the grocery store (true story).  And when it comes to these twisted delights, I don't discriminate, give me thin and delicate, salty and sourdough, soft and chewy, I like them all.  This is only part 1 of the pretzel post because I decided to take on two different types of cooking methods and then compare the results.  For my first batch I made a 100% whole wheat (oh yeah) soft baked pretzels from a recipe over at Heavenly Homemakers, thank you Laura.  She gives a great step by step break down of the process so if you need more details please check out her post, I didn't make any tweaks to her recipe since it was already 100% whole wheat but I did half the recipe for this first try.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup warm water
1 tbsp yeast
2 tsp honey
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 stick of butter
1/4 honey
2 tsp salt
4 cups whole wheat flour
tbsp butter, melted
kosher salt

Directions:
Mix the water, yeast and honey in a large bowl until yeast is completely dissolved, let this sit.  Next melt your 1/2 stick of butter in a medium saucepan adding in the remaining 1/4 cup of honey, salt and milk, heat this to 120 degrees.  Pour this milk mixture into your yeast mixture and stir.  Add in your flour, one cup at a time until your dough is formed.  Knead the dough for about 5 minutes and place it in a large bowl, cover it and let sit for 1-1 1/2 hours.  Once the dough has risen, take it out of the bowl and give it a couple quick kneads to release any remaining air bubbles.  Take a ball of dough, about the size of your fist, and roll it into a long rope.  Twist into your desired shape and place about an inch apart on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Immediately after taking the pretzels out of the oven, brush them with melted butter and sprinkle on the salt.  I would brush and salt each one at a time since the salt will not stick well if you butter all of them first then come back and salt, I made this mistake so you wouldn't have to : ). 

The recipe turned out fantastic, these pretzels where soft and chewy with a nice denseness to them and a wonderful earthly, salty and slightly sweet taste.  The pretzel stash didn't even last 24 hours, but I'm not really surprised given the pretzel lovers that I live with.  As you might remember my mention of a mustard fail the other day, my intention was for the dipping sauces to go hand in hand with my pretzels but I promise they will still be making an appearance in the near future.  For the next pretzel post I will be attempting a more traditional soft version recipe that involves a quick flash boiling, it will be interesting to see how the two compare! 

I thought I would mix it up a bit and formed some into little pretzel nuggets, how cute and perfect for snacking!

pretzels + beer = one very happy me : )

I hope everyone had a great weekend!