Homemade Soft Pretzels

Posted on April 10, 2012 by

41 Comments

Baseball’s opening day was this past Thursday. Since I could not be at Comerica Park watching the Tigers sweep the Red Sox, I decided to make my favorite ball park snack: soft pretzels. Don’t be intimidated by the recipe. These pretzels are simple to make ( a little time consuming), but definitely taste like a ball park pretzel.

Homemade Soft Pretzels     
Ingredients
1 package (1/4 ounce) instant dry yeast
1-1.5 cups warm water (115 degrees)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups all purpose-flour
8 cups water
1/2 cup baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
kosher salt (same salt used on ball park pretzels) and cinnamon/sugar mixture

Directions
• In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt and 2 cups flour; beat until smooth. Continue to add enough of the remaining flour to form a stiff dough.

•  Turn dough onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic (this took me about 20 minutes). Place dough in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubles in size (this took about 1 hour).

• Punch dough down; divide into 13 portions. Roll into an 18 inch rope (you will need to push down extremely hard to get the dough to stretch); twist into a pretzel shape (the easiest way is how I show below)

• In a large saucepan, bring water and baking soda to a boil. Place pretzels into the boiling water, one at a time, for 30 seconds (the pretzel should float). Place on a paper towel and pat semi dry.

• Place on parchment paper, brush with egg and sprinkle with desired topping.

• Bake at 350 for 7-14 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan and place on a wire rack and add brush on melted butter to add a shine if desired.

 

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41 Comments on “Homemade Soft Pretzels”

  1. Yum!!! I made these a few weeks ago but made them too large and they were pretzel logs 🙂 Yay for baseball season!! Go Rangers 🙂

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  4. Oh my gosh, I can smell and taste these right now. I have never made pretzels at home, but I am sure they are delish. I have a love-hate relationship with the Auntie Anne's pretzels at the mall. They always scream my name.

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  8. I have been wanting to make pretzel rolls, but was a little afraid. You really do make it look easy! They look gorgeous! Thanks for the inspiration. 🙂

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  10. Oh my….now I want to drive to Auntie Annie's and console my Red Sox fan self. 😉 Great tutorial on pretzel shape making. I am putting this on my to try list. It's getting so long….

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  16. Thanks for visiting my blog. I bookmarked these. I've been wanting to make some soft pretzels and these look great!

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  18. Delicious! I've actually never tried to make homemade pretzels before, but your recipe looks simple enough that I could handle it 🙂

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  19. I love Opening day and I love baseball food so this is perfect! I can't wait to try these! Thanks for sharing. 🙂

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  23. Just the other day I was craving a soft pretzel with cinnamon & sugar! Yours look SO good! I've never made them from scratch before but what a fun thing to be able to say you've homemade!

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  31. Yum, yum, yum….you know, I have never made soft pretzels…but they have been on my to make list for some time now…I really need to get to it. BTW…love baseball too! :)))

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  33. Soft pretzels are my ballpark snack too. Oh how I love the salt and the fake cheese, and the chewy outter pretzels texture. Oh I just fainted a little. ~Megan

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  40. Yum! Those look DEEEEE-LICIOUS!!! I'd love if you linked up some yumminess to my link party tomorrow!!! Thanks and hope to see you there! 🙂

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