Hot Sam Twists

Pretzel in boiling water.

Pretzels ready to put in the oven.

Hot Sam Twists!


These big soft pretzels are soooo good served warm from the oven. My daughter Cara and I made up a batch last time she was home and every last one was eaten almost as fast as they came out of the oven. I don't remember where I got this recipe, but when the kids were little, it was a fun family project to make (and eat) these pretzels.

Ingredients:

1/8 cup hot water
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups warm water
1/3 cup brown sugar
5 cups flour (4 cups for mixture - 1 cup for kneading)
1/4 cup Kosher salt
1 Tablespoon baking soda

Instructions:

In a large mixing bowl, mix hot water and yeast and stir until yeast is dissolved. Stir in warm water and brown sugar. Slowly add flour to the mixture, stirring constantly. Continue stirring until mixture is smooth and does not stick to the sides of the bowl.

Place dough on a lightly floured board. Dip hands into flour and knead dough until smooth and stretchy. Push dough away from you with palms of your hands, turning dough as you knead. Don't let dough get too stiff.

Grease two cookie sheets well and sprinkle with Kosher salt.

Pinch off dough about the size of a golf ball and shape into a pretzel. Repeat until all the dough is formed. Fill a 10 inch frying pan with water, add baking soda and bring water to a gentle boil.

Using a spatula, gently lower each pretzel, one at a time, into the frying pan. Count very slowly to 30, then lift the pretzel onto the greased and salted cookie sheet. Sprinkle Kosher salt on the pretzels and bake at 475 degrees for 8 minutes. Remove from pan immediately so they don't stick. Makes 15 - 20 pretzels.

Note: As you can probably tell, this is a very old-fashioned recipe. I do use an electric mixer with the dough hook to knead and need to do very little kneading by hand. Just long enough to work a little more flour into the dough so there is no stickiness to it.