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]]>I want you to know I try to refrain from overusing exclamation marks.
But pretzels and cinnamon rolls get me a little bit excited.
I’d been thinking of a few different ways I want to use my favorite homemade soft pretzel dough, and – obviously – this is the one I start with.
I am a serious soft pretzel addict (aren’t you?!). Though I insisted I didn’t like crunchy pretzels until someone made me cookies with pretzels in them. Now I totally get what all the hype is about!
Are you a sweet pretzel person or a salty pretzel person? I always go for the caramel sauce at the mall, but partly because I don’t like cheese sauce, or mustard, or ranch, or any of those other things they probably offer.
In other news, I think I need to start eating more food that isn’t brown.
But the day I made these was such a gray, rainy day…. and I’d been dreaming of making some pretzel bites like this for so long…. And I couldn’t resist.
You understand, right?
I promise I’m going to have more light and no-bake recipes coming for Swimsuit Season. But even Swimsuit Season has its share of cold, gray, rainy days (at least where I am!), and you just might find yourself longing for something warm, and chewy, and cinnamony, and glaze-drizzly.
Or you can just keep them in your back pocket until the cool fall weather hits and dig them out when you get the urge.
Metaphorically speaking, I mean. You wouldn’t actually stuff your pockets full of pretzels, would you?
Find bread machine instructions here.
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]]>And I totally wish it was my idea, but I actually saw the idea on a Little Caesars commercial. I was instantly jealous that it wasn’t my brain that came up with that idea, since I’m totally and completely obsessed with soft pretzels.
Regardless, I knew I was going to make it and I knew it was going to be soon.
So I whipped up a batch of homemade pretzel dough in the stand mixer and let it rise a bit. I knew I wanted plain old pepperoni and tomato sauce.
The sweetness of the tomato sauce and the spiciness of the pepperoni with the buttery, salty crust? So unreal.
So I let my dough rise about 45 minutes (you could totally leave it longer), and preheated my oven with my cast iron pan in it.
Now, this was the first time I’ve cooked in real cast iron. I just got my skillet for my birthday (thanks mom!) and it seemed like the right thing to do. If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, a regular pizza pan would work just fine, it just might not get quite as crispy on the bottom.
Once my oven was up to temperature, I stuffed my whole recipe of pretzel dough into the pan (carefully! That baby is hot).
There was a part of me that was saying, “this is too much dough, Ashley. You need to take some and make regular pretzels with it.” But the part of me that is extremely lazy won, and — even though making the actual pretzels isn’t that much extra work — I stuffed it all in.
And it rose. Quite a bit.
But it was still incredible tasty, and this way you have an excuse to eat soft pretzels for supper. If you’d like a little less pretzel and a little more pizza, you can always take ⅓ to ½ of the dough and make regular pretzels or pretzel bites with them — they also freeze and reheat well in the oven!
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]]>It’s a bit of an obsession I have. An obsession I indulge in…. exactly never.
Not because I don’t want to, or I have killer willpower, but because I have no choice.
We used to have a soft pretzel shop in the mall we usually shop in, and every time I was there I’d buy a salted pretzel with warm caramel sauce. The combination is one of the most incredible I’ve ever put in my mouth. Please tell me you’ve had a pretzel with caramel sauce.
But then the shop shut down, which was okay for a while, because there is a Wetzel’s Pretzels in the movie theatre just across the street from said mall.
Except 2 years and 2 months ago, we had a beautiful baby girl. And you can guess how many movies I’ve been to in the last 2 years.
Your guess is as good as mine, as I can’t even remember. One?
Would you believe I didn’t even order my pretzel.
So, when we were traveling to Florida on holidays this summer, we had a layover in the Chicago airport. There was a shop selling pretzels and caramel sauce.
So I thought to myself, since we’d just had lunch, “I’ll swing by and pick one up just before we board.”
Except that they boarded the airport one whole hour before take-off, because it was overbooked and I guess they wanted to figure out how many people they could squeeze on.
“That’s fine,” I told myself, “I’ll get one on our flight back when we stop at Chicago again.”
The day before we left to come back my sisters revealed to me that our layover was actually in Toronto on the way back, and not Chicago. There were not soft pretzels in Toronto. They were a little worried about how I was going to take the news.
So I knew when I got home that I had to make soft pretzels. I’ve had recipes pinned to my Breads and Muffins board for a long time now, but I was always intimidated.
There was no stopping me this time.
And you know what? They’re not actually hard! In fact, they’re totally easy, and they’re incredible, and they taste just like the soft pretzels from the mall. And my favourite part: the dough is made in the bread machine!
I’m sure you could easily make the dough in a stand mixer, as it’s only 4 simple ingredients, but the bread machine takes so much of the work and guessing out. The dough comes out soft and a little sticky, but you want it that way. If you add too much flour, the pretzels will be difficult to roll.
I divided the dough in half (the recipe was said to make 8 pretzels), and made 4 medium pretzels and 26 pretzel bites. They both baked in the same time and are both amazingly delicious.
And please serve them salted with caramel sauce. You won’t regret it.
*Stand Mixer/By Hand Instructions
Since making this bread machine recipe, I’ve also tried it in the stand mixer. To make in a stand mixer (or knead by hand): use warm water and combine with yeast and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let sit 5 minutes until slightly frothy. Add the flour and knead (with a stand mixer or by hand) until smooth, 3-5 minutes. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let rise 1-1.5 hours until doubled. Proceed with the recipe.
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]]>*Stand mixer instructions are included down with the recipe.
How many jokes about buns is an appropriate number in one post? These are the softest buns I’ve ever had. Generally, I like my buns a little firmer (insert an acceptable number of groans and eye rolls here).
I’ve been making/attempting to make buns for what I feel has been quite some time. My first batch of buns was at least 5 years ago. And they were similar to dry baseballs.
I’ve come a long way since then. I had come a long way before I ever tried this recipe, but this recipe knocks everything else I’ve done out of the park. These buns are, dare I say it, PERFECT. Every. Single. Time. Maybe it’s my bread machine’s incredible patience, and my inability to match the bread machine’s dedication to kneading and creating the ideal environment for rising bread dough. Good bread dough needs time. Something that I can never seem to get enough of.
My mom always had the best buns. With this recipe, I feel like we’re almost on an equal playing field, except that I leave the hard labour to my trusty bread machine while she kneads hers by hand.
It’s not like I’ve never used my Kitchenaid and a dough hook, or even my own two hands, to make bread dough before. And it’s not like those buns didn’t turn out just fine, soft and delicious. But the bread machine just makes it so easy! (*Note, since I wrote this post, my bread machine has died and now I make this recipe every time in my stand mixer!)
I first tried this recipe 3 weeks ago, and since then I’ve made them 4 times. Four. Times.
I can’t get enough.
My only beef is that I wish I had a bigger bread machine so I could make more than 18 from one recipe. Though they are quick enough that you can easily whip up a batch every week. You really don’t want to try making a bigger batch of these at one time unless you have a massive bread machine — with one recipe the dough is always busting out of the top (quite literally) by the end of the dough cycle.
The first time I made these, I had some bread flour so I used that. The second, third and fourth time I used the ingredients listed below. I don’t like to buy special ingredients if I don’t have to, and bread flour isn’t something I use regularly. I did not notice a difference between batches. The recipe turns out just as well for me with 75% regular whole wheat flour, and who doesn’t like a little extra fiber and protein?
Here’s a little visual on how I roll my buns. First, pinch off a section of dough. Making a circle with your thumb and first finger to “grip” what will be the outside of your bun, “stuff” all the yucky uneven dough into what will be the “inside” of your bun. Continue “stuffing” until the outside of your ball is nice and smooth. Pinch the end shut and roll around in your hands to smooth out the little lump left behind. Don’t add flour unless it’s too sticky to work with.
**STAND MIXER INSTRUCTIONS:
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