Saturday morning fun...

making homemade pretzels with the kids. I had a sour dough starter sitting in my frig for a long while, it looked like it was time to throw it out, it had this grayish alcohol smelling liquid floating on top of the doughy mixture. I dumped the liquid down the sink and scooped out the doughy mixture into a plastic container, added some flour and some water and gave it a good mixing (looked like pancake batter), covered it with plastic and left it on the counter over night. Lo and behold, the next morning, the doughy batter was all bubbly, it was still alive! So our fun begins. We doubled our recipe to make about a dozen pretzels.



Pretzel Recipe: Makes 6 pretzels

Ingredients:
5 oz water, lukewarm
.2 oz fresh yeast
4 oz Sourdough starter
1/2 tablespoon honey
10 oz bread flour
.2 oz kosher salt
1 oz granulated sugar

coarse sea salt for dusting or cinnamon and sugar
1 stick butter, melted

Directions:
1. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together dissolved yeast, sourdough starter and honey.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine bread flour, salt and sugar with the yeast mixture on low speed until it forms a rough ball, about 2 minutes.
4. Switch to medium speed and mix until dough feels firm and bouncy to the touch, about 8 minutes.
5. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough forms a smooth ball.
6. Place dough in a bowl lightly coated wih pan spray, cover loosely with plastic and let it rest util double in size.
7. Portion the dough into 4 oz pieces.
8. Roll each piece into a rope 24" long, shape like a pretzel by forming an 8 shape with 2 loose ends of rope hanging in the center. Set aside and allow pretzels to rest for 30 minutes or so.

Baking Soda Hot water bath
1/3 cup baking soda
4 cups Hot water

Preheat oven to 375 Degrees F.

9. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
10. Dip pretzels in to Baking soda hot water bath and set on baking sheets leave at least 2" between pretzels.
11. Bake for 10 minutes and rotate tray of pretzels around and bake until light golden brown approximately 5-10 minutes or so.
12. Brush pretzels with melted butter. Optional: sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Enjoy!