Soft "Pretzels"

These are a wonderful, home baked, savory treat.  This recipe could be easily finished as a sweet treat. I opted to vary the shapes and sized of our pretzels. I was having so much fun. There are many steps to this recipe, but if you enjoy soft pretzels or baking projects here is a great one!







Dough
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
5 3/4 to 6 1/4 cups  all purpose flour
4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups milk
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup butter
2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs
Boil bath
2 quarts water
extra 3 Tablespoons salt
salt to sprinkle (optional)
Egg wash
1 egg white
1 Tablespoon water

Mix together whole wheat flour and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, mix 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and yeast. In a sauce pan, heat butter, milk, 2 teaspoons salt, and sugar until reaches 115 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, or lukewarm. (Lukewarm is when it feels neither hot nor cold. 120 is almost too hot to leave your finger in.) If it is too hot, take off stove and set somewhere to cool to the right temperature.

Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients in the large mixer bowl. Add the eggs. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula. beat on medium for 3 minutes, then mix in the whole wheat flour by hand. When becomes hard to stir, dump onto a lightly floured surface (cutting board, clean counter top). Knead firmly using the rest of the flour until it becomes elastic and "smooth", which means it stops sticking as much.

Grease a bowl, preferably glass but any will do, and shape the dough into a ball. Place in the bowl, then flip over to coat in oil. Let rise in a warm place, covered with a damp towel. make sure the bowl is big enough, because the dough needs to double in size before the next step, about an hour.

When the dough has doubled, punch down (literally, just punch down, with both fists if you feel like it. Just don't break anything.) Roll out the dough into a 15 by 12 inch rectangle on a floured surface. Try to make it as even as possible, and flour the rolling pin to be safe.

Next, cut the dough into 15 inch long strips, roughly a half-inch wide. roll them into ropes about 20 inches. Try to keep them close in size to make baking time even. Now comes the fun part. Just go shape-crazy. Hearts for your mom and dad, flowers, twists, actual pretzels, braids, coils, knots, anything. After you finish shaping the pretzels, you have to let them rise. While they rise, dissolve the 3 tablespoons salt in the water and bring to a boil in a large pot.

Grease pans and set up a place to drain you pretzels with paper towels. Beat egg white with water in a small bowl, and set aside with a small bowl of salt. Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

With a slotted spoon, lower 1-2 pretzels at a time into the boiling water. Try to pick out the ones you did first, because these have been rising longest. Wait for 1-2 minutes, then pull out and place on paper towels. Place a couple more pretzels in the boiling water. When the first two cool, peel them off the paper towels and place them on the greased sheet. Brush the pretzels with egg wash and sprinkle salt if desired.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until golden. Pull out and set in a place to cool, then put in the next batch. If you start to run out of liquid in the pot, just add a cup to a quart more, depending on how empty it is. Remove pretzels onto wire racks to cool after the next batch is in. The amount the recipe makes depends on the size of your pretzels. Store in an airtight container.

Dipping suggestions:
Soups
Broths
Mustard
Favorite jams, jellies, preserves
Drizzles
Barbecue sauce (not saying we tried it yet, just that it's a possibility)
Cream cheese spread