Soft Pretzels

I think I am allowed to say that I'm a New Yorker.   A friend of mine (my daughter's Girl Scout troop leader), said I'm a New Yorker now.  As a New Yorker, I can say I am in love with soft pretzels.  Of course, as a California girl I was making them way before I ever came to New York.  My pretzel skills really amount to trying out different recipes and finding the perfect one and not straying from that recipe.   Actually, I did stray from it a tiny bit today, and I have no intention of going back.  This recipe is wonderful, except the pretzels get eaten so fast, and I only ate one.  You don't need New York water, or to be a monk, to make these (A monk created pretzels as both a lesson in how to pray and a treat for children to pray). 

 Soft delicious, salted pretzels.  I want one right now.

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 1 1/2 cups warm water, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 teaspoons sea salt,
1 package active dry yeast, 22 ounces bread flour (about 4 1/2 cups), and 2 ounces melted
unsalted butter.

 Bloom yeast in warm water, sugar, and salt, about 5 minutes.

 Add flour and butter.

Mix with dough hook until it cleans bowl, about 4 to 5 minutes.

 Remove dough from bowl.   Oil bowl and put dough back.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in
warm place.  In my case my kitchen window is warm.  Let rest for 50-55 minutes or until
dough has doubled.  

Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit.

 I weighed my dough and separated it into 16 equal portions. 

 Pour 10 cups of water into deep sauce pan or any deep sided pan.  Add 2/3 cup Baking Soda
and turn burner to high.

 Roll dough using fingers, spreading your fingers as you roll.  DO NOT FLOUR YOUR
WORK SURFACE!  You need that dough to be a little sticky so you have traction to roll it
into a long rope.

 Make a U shape with the dough.

 Cross over, and...

 Bring the ends down to make a pretzel shape.

 Place rolled pretzels on parchment paper, ready to be boiled.

 Boil pretzels for 30 seconds and remove with slotted spoon back to parchment paper.

Place pretzels on parchment paper lined cookie sheets.  Combine 1 egg yolk and 1 tablespoon
water in bowl.  With a pastry brush, brush egg wash onto the pretzels.  At this point, if you
want salted pretzels add it now.  I have the salt grinder from Costco, so I set it to the coarsest
setting and cranked that over our pretzels.

Bake pretzels in 450 Fahrenheit oven for 12 minutes.  Remove and let cool on wire rack.
I like my pretzels with mustard, but you can decide what you will serve yours with.

Enjoy!