Homemade Soft Pretzels

Each fall, Jamie and I throw a Sausage Fest down in Brooklyn Bridge Park. We invite all of our friends and grill up tons of sausages. Starting last year, I've also made fresh soft pretzels. They are so. good. Not as hard as you'd think to make, and people love them - big hit. They're glossy and brown on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. I made half of them just plain with salt, and the other half I played around with some flavors. Feel free to do your own thing, but the actual consensus was that the original salt were the favorites. 

Makes 16 pretzels (feel free to halve)

Ingredients:

3 cups warm water

2 packets active dry yeast

2 tbsp sugar

4 tsp kosher salt

9 cups white flour

1 stick butter, melted

1 1/3 cup baking soda

egg yolk

salt (big salt like Maldon or rock)

Directions:

Mix the warm water, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit about 5 minutes until it starts to foam.

Add flour and butter. 

With the dough hook, turn the KitchenAid on low until combined. 

Turn it to medium and let it go about 5 minutes until it's really smooth and pulls away from the bowl. 

Take the dough out of the bowl, clean the bowl quickly and oil it then put the dough back in.

Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place for about an hour, until it has doubled in size. 

Lightly oil a counter and turn out the dough. Preheat the oven to 450 and bring a large pot of water to a boil. 

Cut the dough into quarters.

Then cut each of those into quarters so you have 16 pieces. 

Take out one piece and cover the rest with plastic wrap to keep them moist while you make the pretzels. 

Roll it into a rope about 24 inches long.

Turn up the edges to be a U shape.

Cross over the ends.

Then cross them again.

Then flip the criss cross down to form a pretzel. 

Place on a greased parchment-lined cookie sheet. Continue making them all. 

When the water is boiling, add in the baking soda. Then cook the pretzels one-by-one or two-by-two, 30 seconds each side. Use a slotted spatula to take them out and put them back on the parchment.

Whisk the egg yolk with a tablespoon of water and brush over all of the pretzels. Now time for the topping. Classic topping is just salt, so load it on. Otherwise, feel free to add whatever you want! I tried sesame, cinnamon sugar, Old Bay, cacio e pepe and "Slap Ya Mama" (a Cajun spice mix). Put them in the oven for about 15 minutes or until a nice, pretzel brown.

They look amazing. Enjoy!