Soft Pretzels

Ingredients

• 350ml milk
• 70g butter
• 570g strong white bread flour
• 30g caster sugar
• 1/8th tsp salt
• 7g dried yeast
• 2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
• fancy salt or cinnamon sugar (optional)

Method – makes 16 big boy pretzels

• melt the butter in a small pan
• add your milk and heat until lukewarm (you should be able to keep your sosig fingers in it for a few seconds)
• put your strong white flour in a bowl, add the caster sugar, salt and yeast and stir together
• make a well in the middle and pour in your warm milk/butter thing
• mix everything together and then tip out onto a lightly floured surface for kneading
• you need to knead for about 10mins (it’s going to be a workout so it’s good if you have a small helper you can use for this part)
• grease a large bowl with butter, put your dough in, cover with cling film or towel and leave to rest in a nice warm place for about 1 hour (until it has doubled in size)
• After it has proved, empty your dough onto a clean surface and knead a couple of times to knock the air out of it
• divide into 16 equal pieces
• roll each piece into a long sausage
• to shape, make into an upside down U, then wrap left end over right end, wrap left end over right end again, then bring the twisted ends up to the top and press firmly onto the top curve of the pretzel

• whack your oven on 180C and line some baking trays with baking paper
• get a large pan and add boiling water until it reaches about 10cm deep
• add your bicarbonate of soda and bring to a simmer
• add your pretzels one at a time to this water. Soak for 10secs each side then remove and put on the baking tray
• do this for all your lovely pretzels
• whack in the oven for 10-15mins until golden n gorg
• as soon as they come out of the oven, brush with melted butter
• at this point you could dip them in cinnamon sugar, add some chunky rock salt, or just leave them plain!
• Tuck in, I especially like mine toasted but that could be controversial.