Soft Pretzels - A New Twist

This is a food project the whole family can enjoy. Everyone likes Pretzels but when you add peanut butter, chocolate, or mustard, the combinations becomes irresistible.

Once the ingredients are mixed into dough, children from the youngest to the oldest can roll out the dough into unique and different shapes. The dough can be twisted like regular pretzels, left flat like a bread stick, or formed into circles or even squares. The only limit is your imagination. Or, you can think up new shapes. Why not make pretzels in the shape of Fluffy, the family cat, or Rover, the lovable family dog.

The next step is to gather the ingredients together. This is what you will need to make up a batch of pretzel dough. If you think you might want to get into this project up to your elbows, or if you are very hungry, double the recipe, then you can be sure there will be plenty of pretzel dough for everyone.

Ingredients Needed:

1 package dry yeast 1 Ѕ cups lukewarm water 3/4 cup teaspoon salt Coarse salt

1 Ѕ teaspoon sugar 4 cups flour 1 egg

Soften yeast in lukewarm water in a large bowl. Add salt and sugar. Mix in flour and knead to make soft dough. Do not let it rise. Cut immediately into small pieces. Roll into ropes and twist into shapes. Place on cookie sheets covered with foil and dusted with flour. Brush pretzels with beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 400 degrees about 15 minutes or until light brown. Take out of the oven and cool on wire racks. When the pretzels are cooled it is time to be creative. What about dripping your pretzels in peanut butter, mustard, or melted chocolate.

History of the Pretzel: You may be surprised to know the soft pretzel dates back to the Middle Ages. Pretzels were first baked by an Italian monk as a reward for children learning their prayers. The word pretzel means "small gift" in Middle Latin. The pretzel bakers of Vienna have a pretzel in their coat of arms. In Switzerland and Germany, a gilt pretzel hanging over a door identifies a baker's shop. The pretzel crossed over the Atlantic to America in approximately 1652. There are court records that show pretzels were being sold to the Indians at that time. The first commercial pretzel bakery wasd in 1861 in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Since then, it has been our great delight to enjoy the little twisted dough called the Pretzel.