Homemade Wheat Pretzels

We've been eating a lot of pretzels lately. The Auntie Anne's make-at-home kind. They are delicious. But expensive.

So I decided to break out my old Better Homes & Gardens cookbook and try the recipe from scratch.

It had scary ingredients in it like Yeast. I'm not a bread baker. I have no idea how to use yeast. It requires exact temperatures. And rising. And I'm not very talented at following directions.

But we tried it out anyways.

INGREDIENTS

3 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 TBS cooking oil
1 tbs salt
2 TBS salt
3 quarts boiling water
1 slightly beaten white egg
1 TBS water

DIRECTIONS

In a large mixing bowl stir together 1 1/2 cups of flour and yeast, set aside.  In a medium saucepan heat milk, sugar, oil and 1 tsp salt.  Heat until warm.  Add milk mixture to dry mixer.  Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then high for 3 minutes.  Stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can with a wooden spoon.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Kneed in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough, about 6-8 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball.  Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease the surface of the dough.  Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size.

Punch dough down.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, let rest 10 minutes.  Lightly grease 2 baking sheets.

Roll dough out into ropes, cut into strips about 16-inches long.  Shape into pretzels.

Bake on 475 degree oven for 4 minutes.  Lower temperature to 350.

Disolve 2 TBS salt into boiling water.  Lower pretzels, 3 or 4 at a time, into water.  Boil for 2 minutes, turning once.  Remove from water, drain on paper towels.  Place on baking sheets.

In a small mixing bowl stir together egg whites and water.  Brush pretzels with mixture.  Sprinkle with salt.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

VERDICTWell, that was interesting. I never imagined that you made pretzels by baking them, boiling them, and then baking them again. But they turned out all right.

My biggest mistake was substituting 1/2 of the flour with whole wheat flower. That was too much. Waaaaayyy too much. Very wheaty.  And the instructions DO say 1 1/2 cups, not half and half.  I missed that step.  But by this point you know how well I follow directions.

But they were still good. A little too much effort for a quick snack, but good.

NUTRITION

Calories:  121
Fat: 2g