Homemade Soft Pretzels – Recipe by Laura Vitale – Laura in the Kitchen Episode 207

To get this complete recipe with instructions and measurements, check out my website: http://www.LauraintheKitchen.com

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Hi guys I’m Laura Vitale on this episode of Laura in the kitchen I am going to show you a recipe that a lot of you are going to freak out when you see the title I’m going to make soft pretzels now this route this recipe has been

Requested at least between 50 times to 60 times a day no line no exaggeration it’s been requested a whole lot and you know I had to take it for a while to make this recipe only because if you know anything about my cooking then you

Know I like to make things that are very easel very easy and approachable and for me so if pretzel has always been a kind of difficult recipe to put together it has a lot of different steps so of course I buckle down I worked on this

Recipe day and night for a couple weeks now and I found that you know I try to make it as easy as possible for you but it’s incredible there really is nothing like homemade pretzels I never knew I never thought I’d be saying that because I’m not a very big pretzel eater but

This recipe has got it all it’s easy its quick it’s just a couple of steps and it turns out perfect every time I’ve tested it over and over again make sure it’s perfect so now that I’ve got it down I’m thrilled to be able to share it with you

But before we get started we’re going to go over the ingredients you’ll need some all-purpose flour some water melted butter some sugar salt dried yeast an egg baking soda vegetable oil kosher salt and that’s pretty much about it it’s as easy as that now what can I tell

You about this recipe besides what everybody told you nothing it’s that easy so let’s get started I had my big mixture here because in this case you know normally I’m making things by hand all the time but this needs to kind of knead for a while so it’s much easier to

Use a dough hook so in this bowl I am going to put water and then make sure it’s like it’s warm water it has to be warm so anywhere between 110 115 degrees is perfect and a sugar and salt I’m going to leave that as is and then I’m

Going to take one package of dried yeast and I’m going to just snip it like so and sprinkle it on top now you want to make sure the water is warm otherwise it will not activate the yeast if it doesn’t activate the yeast then you’re not gonna be able to make your pretzels

These give that now you’re gonna leave it alone no mixer no-nothing for about five minutes until the yeast kind of starts to foam a little bit and that means it’s activating which is exactly what you want now to get all the measurements for this recipe you need to go to www.hsn

You know I always put my recipes on there because it’s much much easier for you to print and have the recipe right than in there rather than going forward and backwards and write things down as this video goes on so make sure you visit my website to get the recipe with

The full ingredients of everything I’m gonna leave that for five minutes and then come back to it my yeast is starting to foam you can see what’s happening there with that color that’s exactly what we’re looking for that means the yeast is activating now I’m

Going to turn this on on low I’m going to mix this up and now I’m going to start adding the flour we’re looking for about you’re going to probably use about four and a half to five cups of flour total when you make bread it’s everything when you make some sort of

Dough like this it’s really about temperature you know the temperature of the day and all so this recipe will take between four and a half to five cups I’m going to use it put it in little by little one cup at a time and make sure it’s incorporated by the time I use

Someone incorporated anyway I’m also going to put in my melted butter that’s going to give that beautiful buttery texture exactly what we’re looking for another cup that’s about incorporated and as you can see I’m leveling you off because I want to make sure it’s just one cup perfect because with baking you

Got to make sure you’re putting pretty precise I’m just going to keep adding my flour until the dough is pretty much come together and then I’ll tell you what the next step is now that it’s come together in a dough in a bowl and I’ve

Only used four and a half cups of flour I’m going to crank it up to medium speed like that and I’m going to let that mix for about five to seven minutes or until the dough is really nice and smooth and if you don’t have a mixer like this you

Can always do it by hand you can just go ahead and knead it which is obvious it’s gonna take a longer program about 10 to 15 minutes a meeting until I guess to the consistency that it needs to be but that’s it until how to go for five

Minutes here we go that looks perfect I’ve only been doing it for about seven minutes I’ve letting it go and it’s been just you know meeting its of while I have been conversating with my husband now I have a no-bull here and I want to do is I’m going to oil this

With some vegetable oil because I don’t want this to stick because this needs to sit in here and rise for about an hour or until it’s doubled in volume I’m just going to don’t use olive oil for this only because olive oil has a very strong

Flavor and we’re not trying to get olive oil flavor into our pretzels so I’m just going to set that aside and I’m going to take the dough off the hook it’s perfect absolutely perfect it’s still a little bit sticky which it’s very good we don’t

Want it to be too come on Laura and to think I work out that’s embarrassing okay I’m just gonna take the dough out that’s good I’m just going to pull it together very quickly just like that kind of put it into a sea it’s nice and

Smooth put this into your oiled Bowl and I’m going to oil the top as well just so that let them form a dry skin whoops just like that can I make more noise I’ll cover this with the plastic wrap you can also use like a kitchen towel or

Something like that I’m going to do it both ways because I don’t want any gaps I want this to be nicely sealed and now you’re going to pop this into one place and you let it rise for about an hour I like to put this in the microwave

Obviously you want to turn the microwave on it’s off but that’s nice and warm and it’s away from any kind of drafts or anything like that because if you put this in a place where it a lot of drafts it won’t rise so I’m gonna put it in

There and let it hang out for an hour as you can see my dough has risen quite a bit and that’s exactly what we wanted to look like it’s doubled in size definitely before we get started on working on that we need to prep our baking sheets now what I’ve done is I’ve

Two baking sheets that I’ve lined with parchment paper and I’m going to spray these with some nonstick spray or you can just easily brush these with some vegetable oil and I’m doing it quite heavily because I want to just make sure that these parts off don’t

To my baking sheet that’s all now also what do you need to do is you take a large as you can see what I have there is my roasting pan and I filled it with about 8 cups of water and I put in our baking soda and let that come up to a

Boil it’s a science thing I don’t know why it works and there was a good science at school so let that come to a boil and that’s like at your oven half to 450 those are the next steps so now on to forming our pretzels I’m going to

Sprinkle my counter with some flour you’re going to need extra flour on you there we go the dough as you can see it’s really light it’s actually really light for a dough which is perfect because this is going to make sure that your pretzels are nice and soft on the inside

But really delicious and crispy on the outside now I’m just going to cut this into 12 so I’m going to cut one half and cut six out of this half I’ll show you that and then that looks about right set this aside now you need to warm

Actually not leave it just there you need to work kind of quickly and also gotten the egg bean with a little bit of water that’s just to make an egg wash now I’m going to show you how to make the pretzel shape you want to take your

Piece and you want to just roll this into a rope about 20 to 24 inches long and you want to make sure it’s evening it’s like nice and even it’s not really thick here and then really really thin at the edges okay I’m going to roll a

Little bit more in the center that looks about right then I’m going to make a U shape okay now you take the U shape and you take the bottoms and you pinch it that is your soft pretzel down that lon okay now I’m going to line these up on

My baking sheet that I have sprayed with my nonstick cooking spray and now I’m just going to continue with the remaining last one okay now let’s bring these to the boiling water so I can show you what the next step is I have my water in baking

A mixture up to a boil and now I’m going to add my pretzels in it and the pretzels are going to cook I’m going to put two at a time it’s very important not to bring down the temperature of the water and I’m going to cook them for one minute one

Minute only and I’m going to put them back onto the baking sheet okeydoke taking the last two out drain them well put them right back to the parchment paper lined baking sheet okay let’s go back to the counter for our final step before these bake now we just need to

Brush the pretzels with our egg wash which was just one egg mixed with about a tablespoon of water or you can use milk or cream or anything to kind of loosen it up just brush them all like so last step is to just sprinkle it on with

A little salt I’m using kosher salt but you can use the rough sea salt you could use whatever you want you could also do a mixture of cinnamon sugar that would work wonderful too totally up to you now I know I’m going to let get a lot of

Questions let you know can you substitute yeast can you substitute the baking soda and the answer’s no because all of those ingredients do something to the recipe if you wouldn’t put yeast in it you’re not going to get them to rise if you don’t put the baking soda in the

Water you’re not going to get the texture that the soft pretzel is known for so follow the recipe as is there are no substitutions easy as that so I’m just going to finish these two and now these are going to go into the oven preheated for 15 for 10 to 12 minutes

Until they’re deeply golden-brown now I bake these for 12 minutes and I let them cool just for like 10 minutes so that they’re like nice and warm enough to handle but they’re not going to scorch my tongue and as you can see they’re perfect got a slight little crust on the

Top but they’re really soft and fluffy oh yeah get us a bite perfect mmm exactly what a soft pretzel should be in my opinion right now I used to think written mmm so what I lost my train of thought anyway I used to think making soft pretzels was gonna be this big

Ordeal but in reality only took about an hour and a half from start to finish I mean we had to let the dough raise for an hour you know rise for an hour but that’s really the longest part it takes no time to put together our mixture did

All the work then we just put them in the water and form them put them in the water we bake them they’re done you have homemade soft pretzels on your table within an hour and a half that is pretty impressive I guarantee it once you start making

Them at home you’ll find a reason to make them over and over and over again and just remember if you don’t want to top these with salt you can always top them with cinnamon sugar you have sweet pretzels come on you can do this I did

It and I have your changes print of a poodle I know you can so go to www.hsn.com get the recipe get your kitchen for making them you