Twists

Last night, after dinner, we made pretzels from scratch. I found a recipe on the web, cut the recipe in half, collected up the ingredients, and we made fresh, soft, pretzels.

Neatnik liked making the ropes. She wasn't as skilled with the pretzel twisting but she really enjoyed rope rolling responsibilities.

Let's do the twist!

Pretzel production includes boiling in a baking soda bath. Then you put them on a baking sheet to rest and rise a bit more whilst the oven is reaching for 450°F.

Six pretzels plus a wee bit extra

Fifteen minutes in the furnace really hot oven produces palatable pretzels.

Almost forgot to take this one -
Sorry about the blurriness

Notes for next time:

• Grease the pan.



• Boil the pretzels a little longer. The recipe I used called for only 30 seconds total immersion time. Other ones called for as much as 90 seconds per side.



• Make more.

This was a fun weeknight project. Total time from beginning to end was only about an hour and we all got to join in the rolling and shaping. Oh, yes, and lest I forget, it was also frugal.

A plain Auntie Anne pretzel at the mall costs about $2.59 each and it is taxable. The Philly Pretzel Factory charges less, about 50¢ each but they are slightly smaller.

Ours were not quite as large as the commercially available soft pretzels and we did not experience instant gratification but we didn't have to go out in the cold to get them, we ate them piping hot out of the oven, and the whole batch ran us about 49¢.

After insufficient pretzel consumption, bed making, and the settling of the Neatnik for the night, I did indeed finish yesterday's book while knitting the gussets on the second Ribbed Slipper Sock. I'm now reading It Happened in New Jersey by Fran Capo. Revolutionary war heroes, pirate treasure, ghosts, dinosaurs, and Mother Leeds' thirteenth child - interesting historical twists all in the great Garden State.