Home from Vacay

Wow, it seems like forever since I’ve last posted here, and that definitely makes me a little sad! I began this blog with the hopes of posting at least once a week and sharing my passion for baking with anyone willing to read my ramblings! But  I definitely haven’t been holding myself to that.

Recently I have been finding it hard to find the time to do the writing of the posts, I haven’t had an issue with the baking part! Not only have I been busy finishing my Master’s in Biology (I have officially passed!); I also got a new job and went on vacation for two weeks! I’ll write more about those exciting events in another post. Right now I want to share a recipe I found before I left on vacation.

Pretzels are one of my Mom’s favourite foods. Anytime we go to a Cirque du Soleil show, or any type of circus/show/sports game, she has to get a pretzel. So by proxy, I have come to love pretzels as well. I tried making them once before, but they weren’t true soft pretzels. They didn’t have that dark brown, snappy exterior and the sea salt typical of soft pretzels. So, I decided to try my hand at them again, and boy, were they awesome this time!

I found this recipe by perusing Pinterest (which led me to Two Peas and Their Pod), and decided to go wild with it! The recipe is for soft pretzel bites, but I also decided to stuff mine with whatever I could find or dip them in cinnamon and sugar! So I made 5 types total: regular sea salt soft pretzels, cinnamon and sugar soft pretzels, peanut butter filled soft pretzels, mozzarella filled soft pretzels, and I tried to make mustard filled soft pretzels (Those ones didn’t quite work out). Here’s the recipe:

Soft Pretzel Bites

From Two Peas and Their Pod.

Makes a lot of pretzel bites. Depending how big you make them, you get more or less! You could also probably use this recipe for full sized pretzels.

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbsps light brown sugar
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsps)
3 ounces unsalted butter, melted
2 1/2 tsps kosher salt
4 1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour
Vegetable oil
3 quarts water
3/4 cup baking soda
1 whole egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water
Coarse sea salt or cinnamon and sugar

Things to stuff inside: cheese, pepperoni, whatever you want to try!

Directions:

1.      Combine the water, sugar, yeast, and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix with the dough hook until combined. Let sit for 5 minutes.

2.      Add the salt and flour and mix on low speed until combined. Increase the speed to medium and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and begins to pull away from the side of the bowl, about 3 to 4 minutes. If the dough appears too wet, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Remove the dough from the bowl, place on a flat surface and knead into a ball with your hands.

3.      Oil a bowl with vegetable oil, add the dough and turn to coat with the oil. Cover with a clean towel or plastic wrap and place in a warm spot until the dough doubles in size, about 1 hour.

 

4.      Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

5.      Bring the water to a boil in a small roasting pan over high heat and add the baking soda.

6.      Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a flat surface. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces, about 4 1/4 to 4 1/2 ounces each. Roll each piece into a long rope measuring 22 inches and shape. Cut the dough into one inch pieces to make the pretzel bites. Boil the pretzel bites in the water solution in batches (about 10-15). Boil for about 30 seconds. Remove with a large slotted spoon. Place pretzel bites on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Make sure they are not touching. Brush the tops with the egg wash and season liberally with the salt or roll in the cinnamon and sugar. Place into the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes until golden brown.

7.      Remove to a baking rack and let rest 5 minutes before eating.

I think the coolest part of the recipe (besides figuring out what you can stuff inside them) is the baking soda water bath. The little pretzel bites puff up so nicely and you just know they are going to have that quintessential snappy exterior.

As for the pretzel stuffing I tried mustard, cheese, and peanut butter. Let me tell you, only the cheese sort of turned out! I put too much mustard I think, so it all oozed out! If you are going to try this, go easy on the mustard (or make your pretzels bigger). For the peanut butter ones, my bites might have been too small so the peanut butter just ended up cooking inside (rather than being that creamy runny mess I was looking for). And the cheese worked out, but you need to be careful of oozing, and I would use a really flavourful cheese (I used mozzarella and you couldn’t really taste it).

This recipe is a bit of work, with a couple different steps, but it’s not hard and the result is really addictive! They are such small bites, you’ll find yourself popping them back like popcorn! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this recipe and if you end up stuffing yours with anything awesome, let me know!