I’ve never been a huge fan of eating soft pretzels. I’m all for the free Aunt Anne’s samples after a long day of shopping at an indoor mall, but I would never go out of my way to buy an entire pretzel myself. Making them, on the other hand, sounded like a whole other story. It seemed like being a little kid at those awesome, rare Italian restaurants that gave you dough to play with while you waited for your food (shout out to Carmel’s Il Fornio), except in this case you have to play with the dough to form the pretzel. Even better, this dough is mainly whole wheat flour so it’s more than just empty carbs. And it doesn’t even require any time for the dough to sit! In short, this recipe is amazingly quick and easy, and totally lived up to my inner child’s expectations.
BEST FOR- times you want an legitimate excuse to play with some dough, or are craving a soft & healthy pretzel.
MUSICAL PAIRING- “Bad Habit“ by the Kooks
INGREDIENTS
{makes about 10 pretzels}
1 and ½ cups warm water
1 packet active instant yeast (2 and ¼ teaspoons)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tsp. granulated sugar
3 cups whole wheat flour + ½ cup all purpose flour
coarse sea salt for sprinkling
1/3 cup granulated sugar + 1 tsp. cinnamon
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line baking sheets (I used two large and one small) with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine the warm water with yeast. Let sit for three minutes.
After three minutes, add salt and honey. Stir with wooden spoon.
Slowly add the three cups of whole wheat flour. Then, add the white flour and stir until no longer sticky. After, knead the dough for 3-5 minutes.
Dust a large surface (I used a cutting board) with flour. Place dough on this surface. Cut in fourths, then cut fourths in thirds or fourths (depending on how large you’d like your pretzels).
Use your hands to wiggle out the dough into long, thin pieces. Then form into pretzel shapes. It’s pretty intuitive how to form the shape, but if you’re stuck begin by crossing the ends and you’ll definitely figure it out from there.
Bring 9 cups of water to a boil. Add 2/3 cups of baking soda. Dunk pretzels in this mixture for 30 seconds. This helps get the right hard outer consistency of the pretzel.
In a small flat bowl, whisk an egg. Dunk all pretzels that you want to be salty (see notes section if you want cinnamon sugar pretzels instead).
Then, place pretzels on lined baking sheets. Sprinkle with salt, and put in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, change oven to the broil setting, and broil for an additional 3-5 (watch them so that they don’t burn).
NOTES
- If you want cinnamon sugar pretzels instead of salty ones, the last two steps will be different. Skip the egg wash, and instead put them right on the baking sheets, unsalted. After 10 minutes, take out pretzels, spray with olive oil (if you have a mister, otherwise drizzle will work too) and dust with granulated sugar and cinnamon. Return to the oven on bake setting for 5 more minutes.
The Carmel Kama'aina 