While working on a new doll pattern today, I had a mad, desperate craving for soft pretzels, the kind you buy from street vendors in NYC. I was frantically looking for a recipe, going through my pile of cookbooks, until I finally found one in Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook.
After the dough finished the bread dough cycle in the machine, I shaped it into pretzels, left the pretzels to rise a second time, then boiled each one in a couple quarts of water with two tablespoons of baking soda for about a minute each. This is what makes them chewy.
Then…carbohydrate relief. Sigh.
A similar recipe can be found here.