Twist & Shout

 It was a quiet Sunday afternoon and we were out of bagels. So, soft pretzels came to mind. Mom gathered the dry ingredients into a measuring cup and I mixed the dough, rolled it out into long ropes and formed it into pretzels. The result?

 We turn the oven's broiler on for the last few minutes and create the dark brown crust. A light colored pretzel doesn't appeal to me like these do. Crunchy with salt sprinkled atop - and warmed again in a microwave - they seem fresh even hours later (leftovers are best frozen).

 Here's the just-made dough, lightly floured so that it can be handled and then dropped into a greased bowl. We warmed the oven (just slightly!) and placed the bowl there for an hour. When I took it out, the dough had doubled but was somewhat sticky. I added a slight amount of flour to my hands and worked the dough a little more. I've found that rolling it and then cutting the rectangular piece into six strips works best. Each of the six is then rolled into a rope (about 18" long this time), folded into a pretzel and then baked.

 Though we didn't grease the aluminum foil, we should have. The finished pretzels wanted to sick but could be coaxed away from the foil with a metal spatula. We tried adding a light egg wash and sprinkling on coarse salt before baking. That worked well.

 Care to make some? I wrote about this at length and added a number of pictures. Just click here for the recipe and instructions.