So, I don’t know what happened to my Friday round up. Last thing I knew it was Thursday, then *poof* it was Saturday and we were busy busy busy. Friday vanished off the face of the earth. Lets just say it was planned that way and I was taking a long holiday weekend.. yes, that’s right, I planned it! So look forward to this week’s Friday round up that will have two weeks worth of links!

I was making pretzels for a baby shower, it was circus themed and soft pretzels fitted the bill. I had a recipe from class to use, and while I’m no expert on soft pretzels everyone from class raved about them at the time so I figured they would be acceptable.

They are made entirely with all-purpose flour (plain flour) and kneaded for slightly longer, this means far less gluten is produced so they’re softer. Dried yeast, water and melted butter are the rest of the main ingredients. It produces a firm dough, which is good as they only rise once. As soon as they’re out of the mixer they are divided and rounded into balls.Mine were 2.5oz each.

Left to rise under oiled cling wrap they will double in size. Take them and roll them out into nice long sausages, shape the pretzels and place them back on the sheet. Bring a pan of water with baking soda to the boil and dip all the pretzels in there. I forgot this stage which led to an interesting discovery, more of that in a second. Once they have all been dipped you can top them with whatever you like. I did half with cheese and half with just coarse salt and black pepper. Put them straight in the oven and bake them off, they don’t take very long, about 15 minutes.

My (unboiled) pretzels came out the oven delicious. But I am not a soft pretzel aficionado. Michael tells me they should have been chewier (possibly a product of not being boiled) and they needed more salt on top. But they were delicious white rolls, almost like dinner rolls. I have been on the search for a perfect burger bun recipe (too many I’ve seen have been far too sweet), maybe this would be my starting point.

So I made another batch, this time I weighed the balls out to 3oz each, and each ball got placed on the tray and pressed down to flatten them out slightly. Left to rise they were put in the oven as soon as they had risen, no more shaping. Egg washing may have been a good idea too, you could also sprinkle them with any seeds you feel like as well, poppy, sesame, whatever floats your boat.

They came out good, they were really nice burger buns! A slightly dense texture allowing them to be squished about a bit, but not heavy at all. Wonderful toasted! I love it when they rise in the oven so they touch and they need to be pulled apart!

Isn’t it wonderful when missing a step in a recipe yields a whole new product!

Oh, and the pretzels went down well at the shower anyway *grins*