It's cold here today, and the wood stove isn't keeping up, and I don't want to turn up the heat, so instead I baked. Picture of the previously mentioned biscuit cinnimon rolls:
a word of warning on the recipe, both times I made it how I ended adding extra flour, at least a 1/2 cup. Thought it was just me at first, but both times I had to.
I also ended up trying a
soft pretzel recipe (I highly recommend reading the link, she gives all sorts of tips):
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups warm water (around 110 degrees F)
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons if you’re using bulk yeast)
- 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ounces butter, melted
- Vegetable oil, for bowl and parchment paper
- 10 cups water
- 2/3 cup baking soda
- 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
- Coarse salt
Instructions
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the warm water, sugar, and salt. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and let it sit for 5 to 8 minutes, until it gets a little foamy.
Add the flour and melted butter and mix on low speed until the flour is incorporated. Once there’s no risk of creating a plume of flour dust, increase the speed to medium and knead until the dough begins to pull away from the bowl walls, climb up the hook and appears smooth. This should take 3 to 4 minutes.
Remove the dough and shape it into a smooth ball. Grease the bowl with a little oil, place the dough ball into the bowl and turn it so that it gets a thin coating of the oil. Cover the bowl some plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out and a towel to keep it warm. Let it rise for approximately one hour, or until it has doubled in size.
Combine water and baking soda in a large, wide pot and bring to a boil.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and generously grease the paper. Set prepared pans aside.
Turn the dough out of the bowl and onto a slightly oiled counter top. Gently deflate it a little and shape into a ball. Cut dough into quarters and then cut each quarter in half (so that you have 8 pieces of approximately the same size).
Roll each piece of dough into a long thin rope and twist it into a pretzel shape (see above for detailed instructions). Place on the greased parchment paper.
When all the pretzels have been shaped, give each one a 30 second turn in the baking soda-spiked boiling water (a slotted spoon or spider is the best tool for this job). Return boiled pretzels to their positions on the baking sheet. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse salt.
Bake pretzels until they reach a deep, brown color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Cool for a few minutes and serve warm (ideally with some coarse ground mustard). These pretzels are best on the day they are made, but can be refreshed in a hot oven on the second day. For longer storage, freeze them in a ziptop bag.
I didn't have any pretzel salt, so I grated chedder cheese over mine. If you plan to do that you might reduce the salt in the recipe by just a bit, they were a bit salty, but not horribly so.