Making Pretzels

Before summer break began, I started putting together a bucket list of summer fun activities. Pretzel-making was at the top of the list. It's one of those things I've wanted to try for a while, & something I thought the girls would enjoy too. And since our outing to watch a bird banding demonstration this morning fell through, (we looked & looked at the park, but couldn't find the event), we made a detour for the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for plan B. Plus, the weather sort of turned gloomy & it just felt like the perfect activity for such a time. 

The recipe we used to make the pretzels can be found HERE. 

We practiced our pretzel-twisting skillz with some wet yarn & playdough.

There are tons of videos on how to shape a pretzel on YouTube. We found THIS link to be helpful. (And it was short: 16 seconds. I don't need a 9 minute video to tell me how to shape a pretzel! Seriously.)

And then the edible fun began...

My first attempt at placing a twisted pretzel in boiling baking soda water was HORRIBLE. I tried to repurpose the soggy dough into pretzel bites. Thus, the little bits that look like bloated + mangled fried fingers.

Pazely made a mini pretzel from her dough & it turned out really well! I'm thinking when we make these again, to divide the dough into more than 8 pieces, so we have more of a snack-size pretzel.

I also made 3 different dipping sauces. The first was just some leftover whipped chocolate ganache frosting, (If I didn't have the frosting on-hand, I would have made a powdered sugar glaze.), the second was simply honey mixed with a squirt of mustard, & the third involved following THIS recipe for the Saucy Sister's Oktoberfest Pretzel Dipping Sauce. It's like a cheesy mustard sauce. Next time I make it, I think I would use less mustard + more cheese. 

The girls loved the pretzels. In fact, it was our lunch. Pazely & her friend loved the chocolate sauce best, while Zoey preferred the honey mustard. The Mr. slightly coughed when he sampled the mustard/cheese sauce. Too much mustard?

These were easy to make, & fun to involve the kids.

Yay for baking adventures!

♥