The Best Pretzels. Ever.

It's time for another IF-Free Zone post. Shocker: it's about food.

Larry and I are self-proclaimed foodies. We like to cook and we love to go out and eat. I have always fancied myself a good cook: I can make some tasty sauces and I'm not afraid to dabble in spices. The dishes I make best tend to be entrees. I make a killer tomato sauce, and honey dijon chicken is so simple, and so delish on a Friday night. I love it. I also can execute complex desserts: chocolate ganache with candied orange peels, for example. I know, I know - try not to drool.

Larry's much more adventurous: pork chops, roasted chicken, brussel sprouts.

I'm sorry, I need to take a minute to talk about brussel sprouts:

They are... amazing. I never in my life thought I'd be cooking them, much less a Rachel Ray recipe for brussel sprouts but good G-d, they are delish. We were lucky enough to find baby brussel sprouts, and they're much sweeter and more tender than their teenaged cabbage siblings. Bacon, shallot, chicken stock BAM! You have one helluva side dish.

Right, back to the paragraph at hand.

Larry's also the default steak-cooker in our house. But he's also mastered the one kitchen role with which I still struggle: baking. Sure, I make a mean sugar cookie (easiest cookie to make ever), but he makes chocolate chip cookies from scratch. He bakes a great challah. His cakes are light and fluffy (except for that diabetic no-sugar birthday cake he made me years back. That was kind of a disaster. He didn't realize it was a diabetic recipe until too late in the process).

I've never considered myself a good baker. My challah is always too dense. I've never made cookies other than sugar cookies. And the banana bread I tried to make two weeks ago?

To get a sense of scale:
This is a 9" dinner plate. The loaf weighs about 2lbs.

So... the recipe called for a bundt pan. I didn't have one, so I thought my silicone loaf pan would do. I filled the batter to the edge because I didn't think it would rise, not realizing that baking soda is a levening agent. I should have really used 2 loaf pans. Instead, I ended up with Attack of the Giant Banana Bread:

Wait, who's attacking what?
This is a common picture pose for me, actually.

And no joke - it took almost 2 hours to bake and it STILL wasn't done all the way through. I cut the loaf in half and brought it to work. I mean, it tasted okay, but not great. A bit... doughy.

Baking FAIL.

And then Larry discovered Working Class Foodies, quite possibly the neatest food vlog out there. And we found a recipe for homemade soft pretzels. Now, to be fair - our friend Claire had gotten us turned onto homemade pretzels because she makes some BANGIN' brown sugar based pretzels from scratch. They are pretty incredible. Her recipe is metric, so she has to reconvert everything when she makes it, so sometimes the measurements might be off between batches. That's what lead us to go looking for another pretzel recipe and wow... they're good. Different than Claire's, but equally as good.

These pretzels are also the first baking foray I've made that have come back successful, delicious, and leaving my guests wanting more! I made these for Halloween and they lasted, maybe 10 minutes on the table.

Here's the whole recipe in action:

 The only drawback to Working Class Foodies is that they don't write down their recipes; they're always contained in the videos themselves. So as I was making them, I had the laptop on the counter, rewinding and pausing. My dear readers, I will save you this trouble :)

Working Class Foodies' Homemade Soft Pretzel Recipe

Seriously, they are stupid easy and wicked fun to make.

 You'll need...

• 1 packet/tsp of dry active yeast
• 1.5 cups warm water
• 1 TBSP of sugar
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 4.5 cups all purpose flour
• 4 TBSP melted butter
• 1 TSSP veggie oil (to coat your bowl)
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda 

Directions:

1. Dissolve sugar and salt into warm water. Add yeast. Allow to proof and get frothy for about 5-10 minutes.
2. Once the yeast has proofed, add butter and yeast mixture to flour. Form into shaggy dough.
3. Flour a work surface and knead dough until smooth, about 5-10 minutes. Place into bowl rubbed with veggie oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to double in size, about 1 hour. You might want to preheat your oven to 450° and set your bowl on the stove; the warmth helps it rise.
4. Preheat your over to 450° if you haven't already. Add baking soda to 10 cups of water and bring to a fast rolling boil. 
5. Once doubled in size, flour your work surface and knead for another 5 minutes. Divide into 8-12 pieces. We ended up with about 10. 10 makes HUGE pretzels.
6. Roll pieces into 2' logs, about an inch thick. Make a U, cross the ends, twist once, press ends down into bottom of U. Tada! Pretzel shape.
7. Place pretzels on baking sheet or place to get them out of your way.
8. Once you've made all your pretzels and the water is boiling, carefully and gently add them to the water, one by one. Don't overcrowd and take each one out after about 30 seconds.
9. Place boiled pretzels on greased parchment paper on baking sheet. Sprinkle with course salt to taste. (Optional: you can add an egg wash before you salt them, but I didn't it without the egg wash and it worked fine. It just makes them look fancier.)
10. Bake pretzels for 12-14 minutes, rotating halfway through. Take out, slather with mustard, dip into cheese, or eat them as is. Delish!

These go excellently with Sunday football. Enjoy!