How to make homemade soft pretzels - easy pretzels recipe
Hello and welcome back to in the kitchen with matt; I am your host matt taylor.
Today I am going to show you how to make soft pretzels.
Mmm, soft pretzels are such an amazing snack; these are going to be the types of soft pretzels
that you would find at the mall, or at the carnival, places like that.
They are really easy to do, let's get started.
Ok for the tools and ingredients, we have a large bowl, we have a whisk, and we have
a wooden spoon, 5/8ths cup of water, 2 and ? tsp of active dry yeast, which is the same
as one packet, 6/8ths of a tsp of salt, ? cup of white sugar, 2 tsp of canola oil, we have
some kosher salt that we will put on top, we have ? of a cup of baking soda which we
will add to 4 cups of water, and we have 2 and a half cups of flour.
First let's heat up our water to about 110 degrees, I am going to put it in the microwave
for about 30 seconds and that will probably be enough.
Ok once our water is heated up, we are going to go ahead and add in our yeast, and I am
also going to go ahead and add in a pinch of sugar, about 1 tsp, and what that is going
to do, is allow the yeast to feed on it, just give it a little stir with the wire whisk
here.
And we just want to let this set for about 5 to 10 minutes, and what is going to happen
is it is going to get all foamy and that is how we know it is alive and ready to go.
All right as you can see the yeast is all nice and foamy, we know it is active and thriving.
I am going to set this aside here, go ahead and take our big bowl, add our yeast mixture,
add our oil, add our sugar, and into our flour I am going to add the salt.
And just whisk it around a little bit; you can also shift it if you want.
Ok and now we are going to start adding the flour, just a little bit at a time, just mix
it together real well.
Okay, and we come in here with our hands, and at this point what I normally do is take
it and put it on the surface, I am just doing it on my table here, but normally I do it
on the counter, this is just easier for the video, and we are going to start kneading,
let's set the access aside.
And the way that you knead is that you just turn it toward you and fold it, push down
with your palm, turn it half turn, fold it, push down with your palm, just like that,
and if your dough is getting a little bit too dry, just take a little bit of water and
add about a tablespoon more, and we will just keep kneading it in.
Okay, another thing I want to point out is, yeast breads are not an exact science, so
always start with less flour, then you actually have in the recipe, and it is ok if you wind
up with a couple of tablespoons, quarter cup, of flour, even half of a cup sometimes, so
remember, just add your flour gradually while you are kneading, and you will wind up with
a nice thing of dough like this, and what you do is you take your bowl, I have it sprayed
with kitchen spray, or you can use oil, and go ahead and put your dough in there, and
I just move it around a bit.
So it gets nice and covered, that will help it so it doesn't dry out on top, and then
we take a damp cloth, and go ahead and drape it over, and we let this set and let the dough
rise for an hour to an hour and a half.
Usually in a warm place.
Alright our dough has risen beautifully, and now what we do is we take our dough out, it
is all nice and soft, and you can use a little bit of the flour you have from before, so
you have a nice floured surface.
And then what I want to do, is I want to divide this into 6 equal parts, so this recipe will
make 6 of these pretzels, so if you want more, then go ahead and double it.
Okay about like that, and then to make a pretzel, what we want to do is take our dough here,
and just roll it, try and keep it the same size, go ahead and roll it, oh to somewhere
between 20 and 25 inches, and then you make a U shape like this, and there are a couple
of ways you can do this, this one I am just going to take it in and fold it like this,
and pinch it down, just like that.
Okay, got a U shape, and then we will take the ends, and cross it like this, give it
a little twist, and then flip it.
That is kind of like the classic shape; also, so you can do either or, whatever style you
want, just go ahead and do that.
Okay once we have our pretzels all rolled out to shape, now what we do is we take our
4 cups of water and we heat it up so it is really hot, and we add our baking soda to
it, give it a good whisk, and get it all mixed together.
Now what we are going to do is we are going to dip these pretzels into the baking soda
water, and the reason we do this, is this is what gives it the traditional, color, texture,
and flavor, so go ahead and dip it in there, for oh a few seconds, probably 10 seconds
or so, and if it comes undone, just go ahead and push it back together, and put it on your
baking sheet, and you can you know get the shape how you want it, again, now there are
other methods out there, where you boil the water and then you put them in the boiled
water, for about 30 seconds, but for this recipe, it works just fine with just warm
or hot water and the baking soda.
Okay, get the access off.
You can if you want, it is not necessary, put a little bit of egg wash on the top, I
am going to do an egg wash on three of them, and leave the three undone, just so you can
see the difference.
Go ahead and wipe it, put the egg wash on top.
Okay, now we take our kosher salt or course salt, and go ahead and sprinkle some on, as
much or as little as you want.
Okay and we put this in the oven, and we bake it for 7 to 10 minutes, until it is nice and
golden brown.
Okay when they come out of the oven they will look like this, nice and golden brown.
Okay now if you notice, these 2 and that one were coated with the egg wash, they don't
look that much different then the ones that were not coated with the egg wash, so it is
totally up to you whether you use it or not.
All right our homemade soft pretzels are done, they look and smell amazing, they were really
easy to do, if I can do it, you can do it.
I am Matt Taylor this has been another episode of In the Kitchen with Matt, thank you for
joining me, if you have any questions or comments, put them down below and I will get back to
you as soon as I can.
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With that, take care.
Time for me to dive into one of these, I am going to grab this guy right here, mmm mmm
mm, dip it into some mustard, oh yeah.
mmm