July 31, 2003

  • ok, found a SOFT pretzel recipe to start with. it came from lunched. found a great page of conversions. may have used a total of more like 2 (or more) cups flour. and also added about a teaspoon of baking soda.


    make warm water for the yeast (i don't have a thermometer, my tap water must be pretty good, or the yeast is). dissolve yeast in water. add yeast water to 1 1/2 cups flour, a teaspoon sugar, 2 teaspoons salt. it should be sticky like mine was (WAY), add more flour (1/4 cup or so at a time) and the teaspoon baking soda. you're kneading (i stir gloppily/loosely by hand with a fork, in the bowl) it for about 5-10 minutes.




    leave it (or put it back in) bowl for about an hour for it to rise to double (i put some very warm water under the bowl in the sink, so i only let it rise for 45 minutes). above pics of rise process. start a large pot of water to boil and preheat your oven to 375.



    i used lots of flour. the dough felt like powdered baby bottom, i know, GROSS! but seriously, it should be soft, powdered, not sticky, not over-worked. my cuttin' board wasn't quite big enough to get these to roll out long enough to make a BIG pretzel. so the pretzel up there is probably only about 3 inches wide.



    once the water is boiling, you can toss the raw deals in there one at a time. count to 30. take 'em out. sprinkle with sea salt. throw in oven for 11 minutes (on a baking pan, lined with foil to make cleanup easier). after the first batch (first half of the dough), i was sick of making the pretzels. so the rest ended up being sticks. it ended up being 17 pretzels. minus the one i ate for lunch.



    ok, so like, any cheese people out there? i wanna make a cheese bath to dip these in, but everytime i try to melt cheese, it either burns, turns to rubber, dithers, or otherwise just comes out nasty.


    i ended up getting paces' 'salsa con queso' in a jar. seriously. if i'm gunna use something not cheese, that'll do.


    caustic-i can melt chocolate, np, melting the cheese sucks though. i burned my double broiler last time i tried to make melted cheese.

Comments (17)

  • Those look good.  OH, i know how you can melt cheese.  Step 1.  Buy a block of velveeta or Cheeze Whiz.  Step 2.  Put it in the microwave.  Viola!   

  • Velveeta is the key.  Seriously.  There is none other for a cheese dip.  If you want a little kick, grab some Ro-tel chilis/tomatoes...It's fabulous.  Always melt cheese slow and if you want it creamy slowly add milk to your desired consistency.  I would suggest a crock pot vs. a stove too.  Happy eating!

  • velveeta would be my only suggestion.  its all i will use for melted cheesy products because of teh reasons you stated.  even though its not really cheese...is it?  it tastes damn good!! lol.  melt whatever you choose slow and low and stir lots.  velveeta and some chunky salsa would be  yummy and spice it up a little bit.  mmmmm, dang girl, you got me wanting to make pretzels!  i'm going to have a pictoral cooking blog tomorrow/tomorrow night sometime...making son's first birthday cake.  lol.  wanna help?

  • thanks ladies.......velveeta=secret of the xanga cooks.

  • Cheese bath WOOO HOOOOOO!!! I'm getting my rubber ducky...

  • LOL, don't jump on that rubber ducky just yet...i wasn't planning on going to the store today.

  • oh shucks, you don't really have any peanut butter either, DO YOU? poor sean.

  • I'd ignore Velveeta since I don't really consider it to be cheese. For melting down cheese, which I've never done, I'd imagine you'd be looking at a double-boiler (so as to not scorch the cheese as it's melting; similar principle to melting chocolate) and some manner of cream, though I'm not sure if you're looking at thick, fatty cream or light milk. I suppose that would depend upon the style of cheese you're looking to melt. Hrm.

  • Hmm. They look delicious. hehe I have to agree with the above. Velveeta is the best. And you can use a little milk to thin, if desired. Or, you can add other cheeses in with the velveeta, depending.. soft cheese like mozz works well.

  • maybe we should ask the expert?

  • the expert doesn't talk to too many outsiders...

  • your fork comment reminded me of mom's piecrusts. she always used a fork to cut the water in. pastry dealy for the shortening, but a fork for the water. i think it was a holdover from how her mom always did it.

    as for the cheese...it's been a long time, and i only melted cheese once. it was for mac & cheese, the homemade way. if i recall correctly, when my grandmother talked me through it, she had me use about a tablespoon of flour and something else. melted the cheese with the something else and then stirred in the flour. maybe it was 2 tablespoons. anyhow....the whole point is that i think you could find a homemade mac & cheese recipe and swipe that for it.

  • I wouldn't like eating water with a fork. Hmm, I wouldn't like eating water.

    How about mustard on those pretzels? Yeah!

  • OMG soft pretzels and a coversion table in the same post....

    It's like ive hit the lottery!!

    Yummyyyyyyyyyy

  • u r making me hungry

    and im staying in my nic and im staying on xanga, not gonna let that fucker run me away *smiles*

  • OMG I LOVE soft pretzels!!!

    Wow thats inspireing, im going to run off and look for flour right now!

  • mmmmmmmm looks good. i'll bring the guiness!

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