Just Stuff It!! Pretzel Sammies

It is Saturday Sunday today! Hooray! I was supposed to vacuum but I haven't done that yet.  What I did do was make some pretzel bites and pretzel sammies.  Spring training is upon us and that has me thinking of pretzels!! I used a good old stand by recipe that I have posted before because it was tasty and lets face it, sometimes it is just relaxing working with a recipe you  know works and works well.  I made the pretzel bite using this recipe here.  It can also be found at this link. For the sammies, I did switch out 2 cups of all purpose flour for whole wheat this time without affecting the texture or the taste.  These sammies were an absolute hit!!

Ham and Havarti pretzel sammies

Pretzel Sammies

Printable recipe

For the pretzel dough:

·         2 cups warm water

·         2 tbsp light brown sugar

·         1 pkg active dry yeast (2 ¼ tsp)

·         ½ cup butter, melted

·         3 cups all purpose flour

·         2 cups whole wheat flour

·         3 tsp salt

Hot water bath

·         6 cups water

·         ¼ cup baking soda

Egg wash

·         1 egg

·         1 tsp water

For the fillings, go with your favourite combinations of meats and cheeses.  Today I went with ham and Havarti, salami and provolone, as well as pastrami and cheddar.

Combine the warm water, yeast, and brown sugar.  Set aside for about 5 minutes and let it get all foamy.

Add the melted butter, the flour, and the salt.

With the dough hook, mix everything.  The dough will come together.  If the dough is sticky, add a bit more flour.

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and set it in a warm spot to rise until double in size, about an hour.

While the dough is rising, cut the cheese into cubes and the meat into more usable portions.

Divide the dough into equal 15 portions. I used a scale and was able to get 15 portions of dough that were roughly 3 oz each.

Form each piece of dough into a ball and cover them with a clean tea towel while you work with a few pieces at a time.

Flatten each dough piece into a flat circle and start piling on the toppings alternating cubes of cheese and pieces of meat.  Pile the fillings on until you think it won’t close.

Pull the dough up around the filling and start pinching to seal all the sandwichy goodness up inside.

Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil.  Once it is boiling, reduce the heat slightly to a high simmer and slowly add ¼ cup of baking soda...it will bubble up so add it slowly!

Simmer the sammies in the hot baking soda water bath for about 1 minute flipping over after 30seconds.  Transfer to a baking sheet, brush with an egg wash.

If you like, sprinkle with coarse salt after the egg wash.  Although if you aren’t eating these right away, then skip the salt as it will just melt away in storage.  If you are making more than 1 kind, use a piece of the meat to lay on top of the sammies to help identify them.

Bake at 425F for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Welcome Back Baseball Pretzel Bites

Today is an exciting day in the Little Kitchen! It is the first day ball fans get to watch their beloved New York Mets play a game...of course we are in the comfort of our own living room and the Mets are in sunny Port St. Lucie but thank you to modern technology, we get to watch!!

We all know what this means!!  Pretzel season has officially opened!  I have been waiting so patiently for this.  I do love pretzels! So much that I make pretzel rolls, pretzels, and now pretzel bites and stuffed pretzel sandwiches!!  Have I gone off the deep end??

Perhaps, but that is another post.

Not too long ago, Kate over at Diethood posted her recipe for her pretzel bites.  If you have never clicked your way to her blog, you really should.....I drooled while I read the pretzel bite post, saved it and today was the day to make them!  Pretzels go so well with baseball. They were made for each other

Once I had the dough made and it had its chance to rise, I started rolling out ropes of dough and cutting them into 1 inch (about 2 cm) pieces.  An idea came to me....we all know how much I like to make fold over type of sandwiches so I grabbed the corned beef, cheese, mustard, and sauerkraut from the fridge and made a couple of stuffed pretzel sammies!!

I saved a couple smallish balls of dough and rolled them out.

Cut up some corned beef into smaller pieces and cheese into cubes.

Layer these with mustard or sauerkraut.

If I had some Swiss cheese and thousand island dressing, the sammie on the left would have been a Reuben!

Seal up the dough by pinching it all around the dough.  Make sure the dough is completely sealed.

Simmer in the hot water/baking soda bath, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with salt, and bake until golden brown....that would be about 15 minutes.

Pretzel Bites

Printable recipe here

·         2 cups warm water

·         2 tbsp light brown sugar

·         1 pkg active dry yeast (2 ¼ tsp)

·         ½ cup butter, melted

·         5 cups all purpose flour

·         3 tsp salt

Hot water bath

·         6 cups water

·         ¼ cup baking soda

Egg wash

·         1 egg

·         1 tsp water

Combine the warm water, yeast, and brown sugar.  Set aside for about 5 minutes and let it get all foamy.

Add the melted butter, the flour, and the salt.

With the dough hook, mix everything.  The dough will come together.  If the dough is sticky, add a bit more flour.

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and set it in a warm spot to rise until double in size, about an hour.

Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil.  Once it is boiling, reduce the heat slightly to a high simmer and slowly add ¼ cup of baking soda...it will bubble up so add it slowly!

Roll out ropes of dough and cut each rope into sections that are about 1 inch long.

Simmer in the hot baking soda water bath for about 1 minute.  Transfer to a baking sheet, brush with an egg wash, sprinkle with salt.

Bake at 425F for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

 Serve with mustard and cheese sauce for dipping!!!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

It's a small, small World Series Pretzel Rolls

Things are tense at my house!  With the Mets not even in any of the playoffs, Hubby is now rooting for the Rangers and my son is rooting for the Giants...the cheap shots, slight bickering, and show boating has begun.  I honestly wasn't too happy with the Buh bye Yankees pretzels I had made the other night.  They just didn't have the texture I wanted.  I think I had the water/baking soda bath too hot.  Oh well, live and learn.

The other night I joined foodbuzz and have been making new food blogging friends, pouring over countless recipes and ideas, and basically marvelling at the wonderous photos other foodies have posted.  I am in awe!!  I found a recipe that I just had to try for Pretzel Rolls.   They were a hit!  Easy to put together and baked up nice and pretzel brown!  I doubled the recipe and made them in 3 ounce portions instead of 2 ounce portions but they are amazing! 

 

Pretzel Rolls

Printable version

For the rolls:

•    3 cups warm water 
•   4 ½ tsp dry active yeast
• 4 tsp sugar 
• 9 cups all purpose flour 
• 4 tsp salt, kosher 
• ½ cup melted coconut oil (or melted butter)

For the poaching:

• 1 large pot boiling water
• ¼ cup baking soda

For brushing the tops:

• 1 egg, beaten 
• 1 tsp water

For sprinkling:

• Coarse salt

Directions:

In the bowl of your stand mixer, or in a large bowl, mix

•  3 cups warm water 
• 4 ½ tsp yeast 
• 4 tsp sugar

 Let this get all foamy and fun loving.

 

Add:

• ½ cup melted coconut oil (or melted butter) 
• 4 tsp salt 
• 9 cups flour

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Mix with the dough hook (or a wooden spoon) until a nice elastic dough forms.  This might take about 5 minutes.  The dough comes together so nicely to form a soft, slightly sticky dough.

Cover with a tea towel and set in a warm spot to rise for an hour.

Meanwhile back in the Little Kitchen:

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or with silicone liners.

Put a large pot of water on the stove, but don’t turn it on yet...just getting ready.

When the timer beeps, or when the dough has doubled its size, punch it down and turn it out onto the counter, which you have sprinkled with flour.

Measure out even pieces of dough.  I like to measure out 3 oz portions with my scale and get 22 rolls from this recipe.

Form each piece into a ball and place on the baking sheet leaving some room between each roll.

Cover with a tea towel and let rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 425 F and turn your pot of water on to boil.

When the water is boiling, slowly add the ¼ cup baking soda to the pot....SLOWLY...it will bubble, foam, and spill over if you dump it all in at once.  Lower the heat to a simmer.

Poach the rolls a couple at a time for 30seconds, gently turn them over and continue poaching for another 30 seconds.

Remove from the pot, drain, and transfer back to the baking sheets.

Brush the tops with the egg wash and sprinkle with the coarse salt.

Using a sharp knife, cut an x (or a t) into the top of each roll.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until a nice dark golden brown.

As a side note, today was an accident free day!! Yesterday's wake up call has been answered.

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Buh Bye Yankees Pretzels

In honour of the Yankees being knocked out of the World Series I decided to make ball park style pretzels!  They are fairly simply to make but there are a couple of steps that can get a bit tricky.  First with the rolling and shaping of the dough and then with the boiling of the pretzels.  Why is it necessary to boil the pretzels before you bake them?  It is all explained here by one of my favourite people, Alton Brown.  Of course this video clip also explains the birth of pretzels also gives a great recipe for them as well.  But you can still read the rest of this entry, watch the clip, then get baking!! The clip explaining the reasons behind the boiling is further down the page. It really is one of those things that gets easier after you do it once.

Soft pretzels

In a bowl mix together and allow to get it's foam on:

• 2 cups warm water
• 4 1/2 tsp yeast (or 2 packets)
• 2 tbsps sugar 
• 1/4 cup melted butter, cooled

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, uh....I mean in a large bowl or bowl of the stand mixer:

• 5 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt

Add the foamy yeast mixture to the flour/salt mixture and beat with the dough hook of your mixer or with a wooden spoon.  Add more flour if needed to make the dough less sticky. Continue kneading the dough until it is nice and elastic like (about 5 to 10 minutes).  It should be slightly tacky but not messy.
Place in a slightly oil bowl and cover with a tea towel to rise until double in size (about 45 minutes)

Once the dough is doubled, punch it down, just like the Rangers did to the Yankees.  Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces.  (Being the nerd that I am I measured out 100gram pieces, but that is just me).  You could make smaller pretzels if you like but just make sure you adjust the baking time!

Roll the dough pieces into a long 18 to 24 inch rope.

Make a U shape with the dough rope and curl the ends in to overlap making a loop.

Repeat on the other end.

Place the pretzels on a parchment or silicone baking sheet lined pan.  Cover with a tea towel and allow to rise for about 30 to 45 minutes.

During the last 15 minutes of rising, pre heat the oven to 500 degrees F and place a large pot on the stove and fill it with:

• 10 cups of water
• 1/3 cup baking soda

Bring this to a boil.  Carefully place 1 or 2 pretzels in the water and boil for about 30 seconds each.  Lift out with tongs or a slotted spoon, being careful to keep the pretzel in one piece.  Place the pretzel back on the sheet.

Brush each preztel with an egg wash made from:

• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp water

Sprinkle each egg washed pretzel with coarse salt and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.   Pretzels should be a deep brown.  Let them cool a bit before serving them with mustard!

***If you are planning on storing the pretzels do not put the salt on them.  Salt will just melt into the top of the preztels while in storage.***

Okay, let's face it, Alton Brown does a way better job than me explaining how to make pretzels and he does it with tons of geeky science and video.  His budget is also way larger than mine!  Please watch the Alton Brown episode.  It is just so darn good and is one of  my favourite shows.