Soft Pretzels

My kids love making these. They can be frozen, either at dough stage, or after cooking. No pre-boiling or anything fancy, just a lovely simple, yet tasty, recipe.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups (360ml) lukewarm water

2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast (or 1 packet of active dry yeast)

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon granulated sugar

 3 ¾ cups all purpose flour, plus ¾ – ½ cup for kneading

1 large egg, beaten

Course sea salt, or cinnamon sugar for sprinkling

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 200 deg C, and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
• Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Stir with a spoon until fairly mixed, about 1 minute. Some yeast lumps may be present – that’s fine.
• Add sugar, stir again.
• Mix salt in with the flour.
• Slowly add the flour, one cup at a time, mixing with a wooden spoon until it forms a dough. Then add the extra flour until the dough is of a kneadable consistency (ie: not too sticky). Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 3 to 5 minutes until smooth. If you have kids, this is a great chance for them to punch and knead the dough for you.
• The size of the pretzels is up to you, just make sure that they around roughly the same size so that you get even cooking throughout. Break off equal sized lumps, roll them into ropes. Take the ends of the ropes, cross the ends (forms a circle), then tuck the ends in to the middle, this gives you the pretzel shape.
• In a small bowl, beat the egg. Paint the whole of the surface of the pretzel with egg, make sure that it is completely covered. Then turn the pretzel over and coat the other side. Sprinkle the top with either coarse salt, or with cinnamon sugar combo.
• Cooking time depends on how thick you have made them. For really thick ones you are looking at about 15 to 20 minutes, thinner ones obviously need less time.

Original recipe can be found at sallysbakingaddiction.com.