A couple of weeks ago I saw a post about homemade soft pretzels on Diary of a Mad Crafter and decided I sooo wanted to make me some of them! I then semi forgot about them again until my friend brought in a giant soft pretzel to work (yes, soft pretzels have made it to England!)

I made some of the regular salted pretzels on Friday and they were lush. But then I had used up all the flour… alas. No more pretzels.
The benefits however, of getting up at 05:30 to drop your husband off at the train station, are that you can go to the 24 hour supermarket and stock up of supplies for a repeat session!

And while Mr M is away….. the iPod can be played at top volume. I also took the unusual step of putting it on shuffle. Yep. A 160Gb iPod on shuffle. It can throw out all sorts of exciting things, it was a regular party for one, taking in the Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Manic Street Preachers, James Brown, Eric Clapton, The Prodigy, 30 Seconds to Mars, McFly, Embrace, Booker T and the MGs, Massive Attack………

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(Cheese and Thyme) Soft Pretzels Recipe – taken from this post on Food.com

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups hand hot water

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp dried yeast

2 cups bread flour

2 cups plain flour – note: I only needed 1 1/2 cups to get the right consistency

(1/2 cup cheese, plus some extra for sprinkling, finely grated)

3 cups warm water plus couple tbsp bicarbonate of soda to dip the pretzels in.

coarse salt, for sprinkling

(dried thyme, for sprinkling)

melted butter (or a vegan friendly substitute if you want to make vegan friendly pretzels) , for brushing on after they come out of the oven.

Method

Mix your hot water and brown sugar together until granules are completely dissolved, then add the yeast and allow to froth up.

Add the bread flour, and mix.

Add the plain flour (and cheese), and mix into a soft dough.

Allow to rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 500F/230C, and once the dough is risen, divide into pieces, for the small pretzels I used 1/32 of the dough per pretzel, for the slightly larger ones it was 1/16. Shape into pretzels, sticks, whatever you like.

Sprinkle with salt, (thyme, and some more cheese,) then bake for 5 minutes.

Once they come out of the oven, brush with melted butter!

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So…. any how…. I assembled the ingredients.

Made my dough, left it to rise for 20 minutes, then started to divide and shape it. Look at all that lovely floury mess!

Dipped in a solutiong of bicarbonate of soda and water, then formed into pretzels.

Baked, and brushed with butter…… Salted pretzels done!

For the cheese and thyme variation…… I finely grated some cheese and added it to the dough….

..plus grated some more cheese, to add to some  salt, and dried thyme to sprinkle on top……….

Sprinkled.

Baked and brushed with butter.

Yum!

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Or you can omit the salt, brush with butter, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar for cinnamon sugar pretzels

Note: when I made these and took them into work, I made salted, cinnamon sugar, and cheese and thyme variations. For the salted and cinnamon sugar ones, I used a vegan friendly spread, rather than butter to keep them vegan so all could have some! The look of joy on H’s face when I told her was priceless!

The verdict of the BRI? For most people Cheese and Thyme were top, except one who liked Cinnamon Sugar best. All were in agreement however that they were………….. GOOD! I think the change of having savoury options was good too, as some people don’t have as much of a sweet tooth as me!

p.s. I later made some for when Mr M got back. Made with love….. and flour, and yeast, and cheese……