Name: Soft Pretzels Recipe
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 53 min
Ingredients: 2 ½ cups of flour; 1 teaspoon of salt; 1 teaspoon of sugar; 2 ¼ teaspoons of highly active yeast; 1 cup of warm water; 1 cup of boiling water; 2 tablespoons of baking soda; sea salt or coarse salt; 3 tablespoons of butter

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When I was growing up there was a candy/ice cream truck that would park itself in front of my school at recess. One of the things they would sell were these warm, soft pretzels topped with mustard. Whenever I have soft pretzels (admittedly not very often these days), I am taken back to my childhood. I wanted to make some soft pretzels with my kids and give them the same fond memories. This is a great family friendly recipe to make with your children.

Soft pretzel recipe - the kids will love them fresh from the oven!

Recipe from: King Arthur Flour website.

For the pretzel dough you will need:

2 ½ cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 ¼ teaspoon of highly active yeast
1 cup of warm water

For the topping you will need:

1 cup of boiling water
2 tablespoons of baking soda
sea salt or coarse salt
3 tablespoons of butter

Dissolve yeast into 1 cup of warm water and sugar. Let stand for 10 minutes until it gets bubbly.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture add the yeast mixture.

Combine all the dough ingredients to form dough. I decided to mix the dough by hand since I didn't want to bother getting out the mixer, but the mixer would be quicker.

Knead the dough for 5 minutes and place it in a bowl, cover and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 475 degrees.

Now it's time to get started on the topping. Boil 1 cup of water and remove from heat. Mix in the baking soda, stirring until it is dissolved. Pour into a baking pan until the water is lukewarm. Set aside until the pretzels are assembled.

Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces, each weighing about 2.5 oz. We used our kitchen scale for this step. Let the 8 pieces rest for 5 minutes.

Then start rolling each of those pieces out to make a rope (the recipe calls for it to be between 28-30 inches long, but ours were closer to 20-24 inches). My daughter had so much fun with this step. She pretended she was rolling out a snake. It was similar to playing with Play Dough.

Make each rope into a pretzel shape and place in the pan with the baking soda and water.

Scoop the baking soda and water mixture over the pretzel. This is a great job for your little helper.

Spray another pan with cooking spray and transfer the pretzels. Sprinkle some sea salt on top of the pretzels before placing them in the oven.

Bake the pretzels for 8 minutes at 475 degrees.

Melt 3 tablespoons of butter and brush on top of the pretzels. Don't they look pretty?

You can serve as is or with some mustard. I recommend eating these as close to possible after they have been baked. For one thing, they taste amazing warm out of the oven. But I found that they don't do too well a day or two later.

If you are still hungry after this you can lurk around on the King Arthur Flour website. They really have some yummy recipes I can't wait to try like braided lemon bread and sourdough pretzels. I have not received anything from them to mention any of this, it is just one of my go to sites for great recipes.

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