Pretzel Rolls

I only discovered pretzel rolls about a year or so ago from a local bakery who also sells a small selection of their products in local grocery stores. These are the best way to eat a ham and cheese sandwich, I've sliced them up to serve with fondue, and I've snacked on them with peanut butter or spreadable pub cheese. They are a little on the pricey side, so when I came across several recipes online, I knew I had to try to make them at home.

I had to make pretzels because 1. I got a brand new Kitchenaid Pro for Christmas that I hadn't used yet, and 2. we got a 25 lb ham for Christmas. The ham was nice, but that's a lot of ham for a 3 person family, especially since the third is a preschooler whose food groups consist of cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, chicken nuggets, and apples....in spite of my daily offering of healthy yummy new foods. I'm not crazy about lunch meat style sandwiches, but if I get to eat ham and cheese on a pretzel, I'm all about it! So about 2 in the afternoon, I decided I was making pretzel rolls to have sandwiches for dinner. 

Isn't it lovely?! SOOO much better than the Kitchenaid Classic
I'd abandoned in lieu of a hand held mixer the past few years.

I'd give these an easy rating, maybe moderately easy because they are slightly time consuming. But most of that time is set it and forget it rising time. I picked this recipe from Pennies on a Platter and it said it takes 2 1/2 hours, so I thought I was good to go...

Supplies:

3/4 cup water

1 teaspoon instant yeast

2 1/4 cup flour

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted then cooled to room temperature

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup baking soda

1 egg, beaten

Kosher or pretzel salt to top rolls

Stand mixer with dough hook

3 quart or so soup pot

baking sheet lined with parchment paper

I followed the recipe, which says to put the water, yeast, flour, butter, sugar, and salt all in a mixer and bring it together and let the dough hook knead it for about a minute. Next time I make this recipe, I'm going to let the yeast "bloom" with the sugar and water a bit and then add it with the rest of the ingredients to mix together. Though the end result was ok, I had rising issues with the dough. I know salt can kill yeast, so if the yeast had already bloomed a bit before salt was added, I think that would solve the rising problem.

I let dough hook work until the mix pulled away from the bowl.

Scrape dough off hook, put it back in the bowl, cover with a towel, and let rise an hour or until it doubles in size. I started having an issue here. I waited an hour and it didn't look like much had happened. But I only gave myself a couple hours to get this done before dinner, so I just kept going with the next step.

Before

After an hour....yep, I don't see a difference either

 Put your "risen" dough on a lightly floured surface. I kneaded it just a minute to get back to a nice round shape and then decided to cut into six rolls. I didn't do a very good job at getting them even, but it's just for our dinner, so I didn't care. Shape in to rolls and put on parchment lined baking sheet covered with a towel to rise again for 30 minutes.

Before Rise

After 30 minutes....maybe a little bit of a rise this time.

Get your oven heating to 425 degrees and fill your soup pot with 2 quarts of water and the baking soda. Bring to a boil and then drop your rolls in. I let them cook one minute, then turned them over and let them go another minute. (Next time, I'm also making at least a double batch of dough....while baking soda is inexpensive, you make this huge pot of water for six rolls?!?!? Crazy talk.)

 Put your rolls back on the parchment lined baking sheet. Brush rolls with the beaten eggs and then slice an "x" in the top of each roll. Sprinkle with salt. I had to settle on table salt, and it worked, but I would suggest kosher salt at minimum. I didn't really get that nice crunch on the top of the finished pretzel.

 I set my timer for 15 minutes and they weren't quite as dark as I like, so I let them go another 5 minutes and they were perfect.

In spite of the poor rise, they turned out delicious! I enjoyed my ham and cheese pretzel roll for dinner and for lunch again yesterday:) Apparently, these will freeze really well too, but with the small batch they make, I can't imagine anyone having leftovers that would last long enough they needed to be stored:)