Soft Buttered Pretzels

Soft Buttered Pretzels

These were ridiculously addictive. My dad and I made these together on a beautiful afternoon. Make sure you have people around to share these with so that you don't eat the whole lot of them by yourself!  We got this directly off of the flour bag - guess what brand it is? 

Prep time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Bake time: 10 minutes

Ready in: 2 hours

Ingredients:

3 to 3 1/5 cups flour

1 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 (1/4 oz) package active dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp) 

1 c. water

1 tbsp. vegetable shortening

6 c. water

1/4 c. baking soda

2 tbsp. butter

Coarse salt (kosher salt is best), seseme, or poppy seeds

What to do: 

1. Combine 1 c. flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a medium bowl. Blend well. Heat 1 cup water and shortening in a small saucepan to 100-110 degrees F. Add liquid to flour mixture. Blend at low speed with an electric mixer until moistened. Beat 3 minutes on medium. Stir in by hand an additional 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 c. of flour or until dough pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. On a floured surface, knead in 1/2 to 3/4 c. flour, until dough is smooth and elastic.  Place dough in greased bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and a cloth towel, letting it rise in a warm place (80-85 degrees) until light and doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

Spray 2 cookie sheets with non-stick spray. Punch down dough. Divide into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a 16 inch rope. Form into pretzel shape like so (this took so long to get right - see photo above to see the only one that turned out perfectly hanging out front and center).

 Photo credit: 

http://unamericanaincucina.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/pretzel_shape.jpg

Place pretzels on greased cookie sheets. Cover. Let rise in warm place about 15-20 minutes. Adjust oven rack to top position and heat to 400 degrees. Combine 6 cups of water and baking soda in a shallow sided saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil. Slowly drop pretzels into water, one at a time, cookie 15 seconds on each side. Remove from water with a slotted spoon, return to greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with pretzel salt and/or seeds.

Bake for 8 minutes. Brush with melted butter. Bake 22 additional minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet. Brush generously with remaining butter, and serve warm.

Makes 12 pretzels.

And here's the original recipe from the flour bag: