50 Minutes from Flour to Pretzel

Those cute little lavender flowers the kind you find in a little wicker sachet remind me of going to the CNE. The Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto with rides and amusements and pavilions and lots of people. Its held the last 2 weeks of August and ends Labour Day weekend. I remember going home after a fun day with my parents with one of those little sachets. My mom showed me how to place them in my lingerie drawer.

When one goes to the CNE one must enjoy a waffle ice cream sandwich. Freshly made, warm waffles with a block of vanilla ice cream in between and I loved them. I still do.

Today at work I was so in the mood for those soft, chewy and slightly salty pretzels. I never ate those at the CNE. I don't think they were a Canadian thing at that time. My very first one was one Marc bought for me in the States. Yummy.

Tonight I made some extremely easy, fast and absolutely delicious pretzels. I had to share the recipe with you.

First into your food processor add 1/2 tsp. salt, 2-1/4 tsp. yeast, 2-1/2 cups flour and pulse them for about 5 seconds. (You can make it without a food processor or with a bread machine. Let me know and I'll share the way to make the dough either way)

Then add 1 cup of warm water and turn your foodprocessor on for about 10 seconds until the dough moves away from the sides. Allow it to run for about another 45 seconds.

Put a handful of flour into a bowl. Shape the dough into a ball. It will be a perfect piece of dough! :o) Put the dough into the bowl and turn to cover lightly with the flour.


Place dough into a plastic bag and loosely close but give it room to rise.


I set my timer for 30 minutes to let it rise....and off I went for a brisk 3o minute walk.

Back in time I greased a portion of my counter surface and cut dough into 8 equal sizes. Allow them to sit for 5 minutes.

While waiting into a shallow bowl place 1/2 cup of warm water and 2 tbsp. baking sode. Stir it so that the baking soda totally dissolves.

Roll each piece of dough into about 25" in length. Form into a pretzel. Dip into the water and baking soda mixture. Place on greased cookie sheet and sprinkle on some coarse or kosher salt. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Preheat your oven to 500F.

Bake in over for 8-9 minutes until they are lightly browned taking them out midway and switching the cookie sheet sides with each other.

Melt 3 tablespoons of unsweetened butter.

Take pretzels out of the oven and generously baste with the unsweeted butter.

I took out a favourite plate of mine....

Piled on some of the pretzels....


and helped myself to one. mmmmmmmmmmmm YOU have no idea how delish that was. It was just what I craved. Delicious warm right out of the oven or microwave briefly to warm up for next time.

Way easy and very scrumptulicious! Have a scumptulicious kind of day! Judi xoxo