Soft Homemade Pretzels

November 24th, 2010 by Dionna | 2 Comments
Posted in Adults, Children, Eclectic Learning, Healthy Living, natural parenting, Preschoolers, Teens, Toddlers

Kieran and I are part of a preschool co-op with seven other families. Every two weeks, one of the families hosts a class. We’ve done art projects with fall nature items (pine cones, leaves, twigs), science projects with miniature magnifying glasses, and this past week I hosted a cooking class.

For our cooking class, I decided to try soft homemade pretzels – like the kind you can get at the mall, only healthier. Yum! I tweaked a recipe I found on Living Peacefully with Children and made a double batch of dough the morning of class. While it was rising, the kids made their own single batch – everyone taking turns adding, stirring, and kneading. When they were done making the new batch, they made pretzels out of the pre-made double batch (by now fully risen), and I let their batch rise (everyone got to take some dough home).

The pretzels turned out just right! Here is the recipe I used (double everything to make 24 pretzels). By the way – I made a test batch last weekend, half I baked as pretzels, the other half I refrigerated overnight and used as pizza crust the next day – it was great (don’t dip it in the baking soda solution).

Ingredients

4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar (I used C&H organic sugar)
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
5 cups all-purpose flour (I used 2 cups wheat, 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose white)
Less than 1/4 cup honey (I just squeezed it in without measuring!)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I used kosher salt)
1 tablespoon oil
Parchment paper

1/2 cup baking soda
4 cups hot water
Melted butter
1/4 cup kosher salt or cinnamon sugar, for topping

Directions

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. Add honey to yeast mixture, stir to dissolve, then add oil.
3. In a large bowl, mix together flour and salt. Make a well in the center; add the yeast mixture. Mix and form into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two tablespoons of water. Knead the dough until smooth, about 7 to 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour. (I turned my oven on 150 degrees for about 5 minutes and put the dough in the oven, then turned the oven off and kept the dough there for an hour.)
4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a large bowl, dissolve baking soda in hot water.
5. When risen, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a shape – we did pretzel shapes, hearts, circles, letters, figure 8′s, and more. Once all of the dough is all shaped, dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
6.Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes, until browned.
7. Brush with butter, sprinkle with salt or cinnamon sugar.
8. Eat while warm – yummy!!

Photo credit: metzga

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