These pretzels are making me thirsty.

I absolutely love a good soft pretzel. As a kid from the Midwest, they were a rare treat. Enjoying one meant you were already enjoying an adventure of some sort; a hockey game at the LC Walker Arena, a day at the Seaway Festival, or perhaps a trip to the zoo. Somewhere along the way, an enterprising company figured out a way to sell frozen pretzels to reheat at home. I bought them once, wondering if they were as good as the pretzel you'd spend a few bucks on at the carnival. The box suggests you just throw one in your microwave, overheat, and gum on the soggy flavorless product. Perhaps I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea. No offense to the frozen pretzel people, but you just miss the mark. I chalked the soft pretzel up to a snack best enjoyed when purchased for $3.00, from a guy who may have passed the vendor's background check, but probably hasn't washed his hands today.

Flash forward to a meal at Shenanigans*. They serve a turkey sandwich on a pretzel roll that I quite like. It's a great combination of turkey and cheese with mustard, all contained by a salty pretzel. I've developed a personal challenge of knocking off my favorite dishes from restaurants, but this one was out of reach until I found a bakery in Cincy that sells pretzel rolls. Soon we were enjoying my version at home, but the pretzels were still expensive and spoiled quickly.  In the mean time, I'd become a bit of an old hand at yeast doughs thanks to my trusty KitchenAid mixer. Pizza shows up on the dinner table once a week; my recipe makes one thin crust BBQ chicken pizza for her, and a thicker hand tossed pie for me.

It was time to roll up my sleeves and expand my repertoire. Some casual research taught me that pretzels are simply a yeast dough that take a bath in lye before baking. Some more research showed me that there is a raging battle on the web between those that have good luck making pretzels with baking soda, those that insist that it's a waste of time without the lye, and those that don't realize they're making bagels by omitting both.  I decided that lye was a bit to exotic for my kitchen, so I opted to follow those that offered glowing reports of success with baking soda.

My pretzel recipe evolved from my pizza crust recipe, with a few tweaks. I use butter instead of olive oil, and brown sugar in place of honey. The flour portion is an approximation; you may find you need more or less.

1 cup warm water

1T brown sugar

2 ½t active dry yeast

¼ cup (half stick) melted butter

3 cups AP flour

2t salt
2/3 cup baking soda for the bath

Add the water, brown sugar, and yeast to your warmed mixing bowl. Stir on low with the dough hook allowing the sugar and yeast to dissolve. Add a cup of the flour and mix to form a slurry. Add the butter and salt. Slowly add the rest of the flour. The dough should form a ball that wipes the bowl clean. Knead the dough for no more than five minutes; overworked dough will be tough to form later. I coat the dough ball with oil and set it aside to rise for a half-hour while I clean up the kitchen. With the workspace clean again,  it's time to roll.  By now, the dough should have nearly doubled in size. With a sharp knife, cut it into six to nine equal portions and roll them into snakes 16” long for traditional pretzels. I'll roll each portion out once, then start back at the first and roll to finished length.   

This allows the dough to rest some and makes rolling easier. You can also make sticks, rolls, or whatever you like. Forming traditional pretzels requires some twisting and tucking; be sure to pinch the ends of the dough back to the body. Failing to do so will cause your shapes to unravel in the bath.  Speaking of the bath, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a stainless steel or enameled pot. Absolutely NO aluminum pans, the caustic bath will spell disaster. Now is a good time to preheat the oven to 450°F.

On to the bath.  With the water boiling, slowly add the baking soda. Dumping it in all at once will cause the now caustic bath to wildly boil over. It's a lesson you'll learn once. Add the pretzels one or two at a time and poach for 30 seconds or so, flipping once. Use a slotted utensil to remove them to a cooling rack close by. After a minute out of the bath, sprinkle with coarse kosher salt. Table salt just won't do. Thankfully, kosher salt is cheap and readily available. If it's not in a small dish in your kitchen currently, you have some catching up to do... With the salting done, carefully transfer your work to a silicone baking mat or greased parchment paper on a cookie sheet. 

Pretzels will bond permanently to any other surface. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer back to the cooling rack for as long as you can bear, then enjoy with mustard, cheese or whatever you please! Store uncovered on the counter for a day or two, if they last that long. 

* I swear to God, I'll pistol whip the next guy who says "shenanigans"!

(I'm also not going to mention the actual chain restaurant.)