soft pretzels

Hi. How are you? Long time no blog. It’s April! I can’t believe it! And it’s snowing.

On second thought, maybe we ought to avoid weather conversation for sanity’s sake. Let’s move right on to pretzel-y things. It probably is no surprise to you by now…I made pretzels. Soft pretzels. Soft delicious pretzels. Soft delicious pretzels that are PKU-friendly. Soft delicious pretzels that are PKU-friendly that I could eat every day forever and ever. PRETZELS. It’s a savory dream come true. Let’s be honest: There is a shortage of tasty low protein savory treats.

Here is my confession: These pretzels are the most delicious and satisfying PKU baked good that I have ever made. It was a bittersweet experience really. It was amazing…but are all my future low protein cooking endeavors destined to live in the shadow of these pretzels? Or maybe every time I make something from a yeast dough it will feel like this first experience with Cook For Love’s soft pretzel recipe. I hope the latter. Then I can sing, “It feels like the first time…it feels like the very first time.” Now I am tempted to write an entire song parodying a Foreigner hit. I’ll spare you.

Back to the pretzels. I was really intimidated by this recipe. I am not what I would consider to be a dough savvy person. Maybe I’ve been burned a few too many times (figuratively speaking) by finicky PKU bread recipes. But one not-so-warm March day during my spring break, when I was feeling very courageous, I did it. I made some soft pretzel dough and I tried my hand at pretzel twisting for the first time ever.

Much to my surprise, they turned out wonderfully beautiful. Very pretzel-y indeed. I’m perfecting my tricks. As a forewarning, they have sort of a corpse-ish color when you boil them (sorry for the imagery), but don’t let that deter you. They turn a lovely golden-brown in the oven (thanks to the baking soda and sugar). I enjoy these guys with a stone ground mustard, but I know Brenda (founder of Cook For Love) has a cheese sauce recipe on her site that might interest you as well.

You can find the recipe for the pretzels here. Below are photos documenting my experience, which hopefully will give you an idea of what to expect at various steps throughout the recipe. Good luck and enjoy!