Soft Baked Pretzels

Homemade Soft Baked Pretzels

I'm debating sending out Christmas cards this year. When I was younger I hand printed over 50 cards every year and loved doing it. However, as the years have gone by I receive fewer and fewer cards in return and some of the joy of the whole process has depleted. I think when my mother was alive and before I had kids I enjoyed spending the time personalizing every card and receiving personalized cards in return. However, with the rise of social media and email more and more people are interacting online and less are sending out cards. In some ways it's a little sad, books have become ebooks and cards have become Facebook posts. It takes a lot of the personalization out of keeping in contact, but I may follow suit this year and not send out cards. Then again, maybe I will hold out one more year.

My two boys are currently eating me out of house and home. I don't even want to imagine how much they will eat as teenagers, I might as well starting raising my own cows and pigs, it would be cheaper. A couple of weeks back I tried a new recipe for Soft Baked Pretzels from the October 2013 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Huntington Museum of Art

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 2 hours and 5 minutes of total time, 55 minutes of which is active. I only made minimal changes to the original recipe. For the milk I used 2 percent, it's what I normally have on hand for my coffee. The major modification I made was to simmer the water and baking soda and then add the pretzels for 15 seconds on each side. This allows for a better flavor after baking, it's what gives the pretzels that great salty taste. The recipe uses an electric mixer, but I almost always prepare my bread and baked goods from scratch. I find that I prefer the texture when hand kneaded.

Fall Leaves

My husband and two boys loved this recipe. The pretzels come out perfectly and by boiling the pretzels in the baking soda before baking they come out perfectly on the outside. I turned my pans halfway through the baking time in order to ensure even baking and browning. This is a recipe I plan to continue using in the future, it's great!

For the recipe go to Soft Baked Pretzels.

Soft Baked Pretzels

Recipe Type: Snacks

Summary:

A delicious homemade soft baked pretzels recipe. Perfect with mustard or made sweet with cinnamon/sugar.

Preparation Time: 0h, 55m

Total Time: 2h, 5m

Yield: Serves 8

Soft Pretzels from the Food Network Magazine

Soft Pretzels

So apparently I no longer know how to do elementary mathematics. I went through upper level calculus in college, but my 7 year old had to explain his homework to me last night. Just so you don't think I'm a total failure let me give you the background. He was adding three number together (so lets use 4+5+9). I told him to add the first two and then add it to the third. He looked at me and told me I was wrong. What? Then he had to spend 10 minutes explaining how they learned to do it (completely different than I learned). I was so confused until I finally understood it. I laughed telling my husband the story, who still doesn't understand what my son is talking about. I'm just glad that I went to school in the 80's since everything is apparently turned upside down and backwards. The same thing has happened on other assignments. Apparently even though I have a Master's degree I would fail elementary school. My son finds it hilarious, I just remind him if the answer is the same I don't see why it matters how I get to it. It doesn't help that both of my in-laws taught school for 40 years a piece so I am surrounded by teachers. Luckily they don't know how to do his worksheets either. That at least makes me feel slightly better. This has been a long week for my household so I decided to reward my kids with a new recipe for Soft Pretzels from the October 2013 Food Network Magazine.

Rotary Park Huntington, WV

This recipe has 6 ingredients. I takes 3 hours of total time, an hour of which is active and makes 12 large pretzels. I followed this recipe pretty closely to the original. I did make a few minor changes. First I found that I only needed 5 cups of flour and I added two more tablespoons of warm water. My dough would not come together with less water. Additionally, I used bread flour instead of all purpose. I turned my oven down to 400 since they browned way too quickly at 425 for the first batch (I baked my pretzels in two batches).

Rotary Park Huntington, WV

My husband really thought that these pretzels would go great with beer, mustard or as a sandwich bread with ham. They would also go well with any German dishes especially those with sauerkraut. My two boys loved these pretzels and ate them as soon as they were cool. They do get a little less firm after they are stored so they are best served warm.

For the recipe go to Soft Pretzels. 

Soft Pretzels

Recipe Type: Snacks

Summary:

A delicious and straight forward recipe for Soft Pretzels. Great with mustard.

Preparation Time: 2h, 45m

Cooking Time: 15h, 0m

Total Time: 3h, 0m

Yield: Serves 12

Soft Pretzels

Some of my fondest memories with my dad growing-up involved soft pretzels and baseball games. Since we lived in Seattle, the Mariners were always horrible and the Kingdome was literally (as in ceiling tiles coming off) falling apart, but the soft pretzels were always delicious. Even badly made soft pretzels hold a special place in my heart. They remind me of the afternoons with my dad at baseball games. My mom sold Tupperware to make ends meet growing-up so most evenings and weekends she was gone hosting parties. Now I love my mom, but she had a narcotic system of color coding the food dishes that she left for my dad and I to eat. My dad was good about eating my moms color coded food most of the time, but about once a month we would sneak out and have 'real' food. By 'real' food I mean fast food and soft pretzels. We never spent a lot, and somehow my dad always was able to get us seats at the game without paying. To this day that is one of the best things about my dad, he knows someone that works everywhere. I never knew we didn't have a lot of money because my dad could befriend anyone and get us into any event that I wanted. Pretty much my dad was awesome. So long story short, I love soft pretzels! Given these fond memories, I was excited when I saw a recipe in the February issue of Woman's Day for Soft Pretzels.

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes 2 hours of total time, 50 minutes of which is active and makes 8 servings. I had all of the ingredients already in my cupboard and made no ingredient modifications. I would suggest to make sure that your pretzels are much bigger than you think they should be. As you can see by the picture at the top of the post, my pretzels ended up rising more while I was rolling out the rest of the batch and ended up looking more like a fancy bagel. They still tasted great, but visually they didn't look like a typical pretzel. The one thing that I would change with the recipe would be to double the amount of water and baking soda that the pretzels are boiled in. By the time the last batch of pretzels went in the water there was barely enough left for them to be fully boiled. I think doubling amount would remedy the situation. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

These pretzels turned out delicious! My husband and two boys ate the entire batch in less than two hours. A great thing that my husband discovered was that they made a great bun for a veggie burger. They created a salty bun that would work well with a variety of burger types. I tried a bit of the burger he made using this method and it was yummy! I will definitely try this idea when I make this recipe again. I experimented with the toppings, I did two with kosher salt, one with bacon salt, one with buffalo pretzel salt, one with an Asian spice rub and one with sugar. I love that I could make the toppings however I wanted. Overall, a very easy soft pretzel recipe that's much cheaper than stadium pretzels and can be tailor made to your topping tastes.

For the recipe go to Soft Pretzels.

Woman's Day Candy Corn Fudge

Sweets are my downfall. If there is something sweet in the house, I will find it and eat it. I'm lucky that I was given my dad's metabolism and have two very active kids that I am always chasing after to keep my weight down. It seems that my two sons have inherited my love of all things sweet and will literally dig around looking until they find the last cookie or piece of candy. This time of year is especially bad, I bake at least twice a week and every last bite is devoured by my family. We absolutely love baked goods. I make fudge frequently during the holiday months and I was interested when the October issue of Woman's Day magazine had a recipe for Candy Corn Fudge, which looked easy and a great way to use leftover candy corn from Halloween.

This recipe has 7 ingredients. It makes 64 servings and takes a total of 2 hours and 25 minutes, 25 minutes of which is active. The ingredients are all basic and I already had or was easily able to find at my local grocery store. I made a few modifications to the recipe. Most importantly I chose to use a 13 x 9 inch pan instead of the 8 inch suggested by the recipe. Using the 8 inch pan the fudge would have been way too thick, instead of making 64 very small thick pieces of fudge I made 60 pieces of larger, thinner fudge. A word of caution, after the fudge had sat in the fridge for a day the pretzels became too soft. I would recommend eating this fudge soon after it is made. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The week after Halloween I was able to buy a bunch of bags of candy corn for less than a quarter. I had this recipe torn out for a while before Halloween and had never got around to making it. When I bought the clearance candy corn, I figured it was a perfect fit. Since this fudge is best soon after it's made in order for the pretzels to stay crisp, this fudge would be great for a fall or Halloween party. My two boys loved the candy corn idea, I actually thought the fudge was better without the candy corn topping. I found the addition of the candy a little too sweet. However, the fudge itself was delicious, I loved the combination of dried cranberries and white chocolate chips. Overall, a great basic fudge recipe with a twist.

For the recipe go to Candy Corn Fudge.
\