Let's Eat #9, Pretzels

The story to these starts a few weeks ago.... we took TLC and her brother to winter wonderland at Hyde Park. We had a really great day, the weather was good, we watched the ice-skating, we went on some rides, we looked at all of the stalls etc but, as is so often the case, there was very little (basically nothing) that The Little Coeliac could eat. We walked past stalls and stalls of chocolate covered churros, doughnuts and of course, giant pretzels. Everything looked so tempting but she couldn't try any of it. Even when it came to finding somewhere for lunch we struggled. Naturally, I had my trusty food bag full of lunch, snacks and treats as a back up!!! Thankfully, we found The Happy Hog! A delicious food van that served gluten free sausages and chips so she was happy but it left me feeling sad that she hadn't been able to grab a bite from any stall she had wanted.

That got me thinking, how do you make pretzels?! Could we make some giant pretzels at home?! Then the children made them on junior Bake Off (which we loved!!!) and so I started looking for recipes. They were all pretty similar but I found one on a website called www.kingarthurflour.com and started to learn about mall v stadium pretzels!!!

The recipe looked a bit complicated but actually it was very easy to follow. The trick is to make a double twist in the dough and make sure that you have three even segments before you press the ends down. That way, when they come out of the oven, they look truly "pretzel like"!!!

I was a bit skeptical of the water bath element but that was actually fine too and the dough didn't break up at all. They come out of the water already looking good but when they came out of the oven .... wow.... I couldn't believe my eyes!!! They looked amazing!!!

I read somewhere else that if you want to keep them for a couple of days not to put the salt on when you bake them as it dries them out too much which I think is good advice but as with most homemade bread type foods, I'd say these were best eaten on the day.

They were fun to make, the children loved it and you could make so many variations. It was just great that TLC could enjoy the giant pretzels she had been drooling over!!! :)

As an extra special Christmas treat we had a chocolate fountain and the pretzels were great dipped in that too!!! As were the strawberries, marshmellows, grapes, you get the picture!!!! Love it!!!!! :)

Happy New Year everyone.

#recipes