Weekend baking: soft pretzels

From Smitten Kitchen. Despite the wow factor, I have to admit I prefer the ones from the street cart. And I'm less tempted to eat five of those in a sitting.



These took about four hours from start to finish, with about an hour of active time. The process is very similar to bagels -- after an initial rise, roll the dough into strips, shape, poach in boiling water with baking soda and sugar, and then glaze and bake.

I'm not used to baking bread. The rolling part went against all my baking instincts to avoid over-handling the dough. You would never knead cake batter, because you don't want to develop the gluten. But of course, bread is supposed to be chewy. I just need to develop a different set of instincts for anything with yeast.

Upcoming on my to-bake list: rolls of some sort (maybe Parker House rolls?), bagels, cinnamon raisin swirl bread. (Probably not all before the bar.)