Homemade Pretzels

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We had friends over for a German beer & cheese tasting the other night.  It seemed fitting to have a bowl of pretzels on hand for those in between bites, along with a tray of sliced fruits.

Except, I didn't know nothing 'bout birthin' no pretzels.  So, I went over to Mizz Francie's and grabbed her Homemade Pretzels recipe.  (I don't know WHY I've slipped into Gone With The Wind, when I started out talking about German beer & cheese.)

ANYHOO.

I ended up making this recipe FOUR TIMES. I made the first batch of pretzels on Thursday, thinking I would be saving myself stress & time on Friday.  Well, I didn't.  I made the mistake of storing them in plastic bags.  The next day, they were moist & chewy.  They had lost their crispy, crunchy crust.  So, I started over.

Now halfway through making the first batch of pretzel dough, I got to thinking of Kelly's use of roasted garlic on her Deep Dish Greek Pizza recipe. Kelly adds extra oil to her garlic bulb, to make garlic oil.  This is GENIUS.

The first batch of pretzels, I made EXACTLY like Francie the Frantic Homecook said to do it.  It's not a hard recipe to follow, Francie's great about showing us step by step photos.  The only bit I left out the first time was greasing the cookie sheet.  Do Not Forget to Grease the Cookie Sheet.

I did eventually give up on dipping the pretzel dough in the soda water.  I don't know what purpose this has, but it's messy.  I dipped half a pan and left the other half updipped.  After they were baked up, I couldn't tell which was which.

These pretzels are delicious; the kids love'em.  They're more like dinner rolls shaped like pretzels, yet they have a crunchy crust.

For the next batch, I went off roadin'!

While the yeast was growing and feeding on the white sugar in the water, I wrapped a garlic bulb in heavy duty foil, poured on extra oil and baked it at 450F for 15 minutes.

In a medium bowl, I added to the 4 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt,  and 2 teaspoons of fresh, freshly ground peppercorns.

I drained off and reserved the garlic oil, then mashed up about 3/4 of the bulb of roasted garlic (without the papery skins of course) then added to the yeast & water.  I added 1/3 of the seasoned flour and stirred the dough slowly.  Adding the dough by thirds until all was incorporated.  After the dough started to form a rough ball, I changed from paddle attachment to dough hook on the electric mixer.

I kneaded the dough for 5 minutes or so (I actually lost track), until the dough was smooth. Moved it to an oiled bowled, covered it with plastic wrap and waited for 30 minutes for it to double in size.

I punched down the down, kneaded it with my hands on a lightly floured surface a few times and divided the dough into 2 inch balls.  All the balls went back into the oiled bowl and covered them while I worked one pretzel rope at a time.

I used the garlic oil to coat the pretzels, then sprinkled them with course salt.  I baked them for 15 minutes in the 450F oven.

THEY TURNED OUT GREAT!  The grown ups loved them.
They were spicy and full of flavor.  Even with all the garlic I put in the dough, it wasn't over powering at all.  Just between you & me, it wasn't garlickly enough for my taste.

I still don't know how to keep their crunchiness for the next day.  I definitely want to do the pepper & garlic thing to my pita bread recipe, the next time I make pita bread.

Did I tell you I made dinner rolls from my pita bread recipe?  They turned out a big crowd pleaser, too.

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