Is there anything more comforting than making dough by hand? I submit that it belongs on a short list of things that make me feel wholesome and whole. Driving with the windows down on a sunny day, snuggling with my boyfriend and/or very snuggly puppy, being in the sun in general, and the smell of the dough as I knead it. It makes me feel like an old soul.
I am a big fan of carbohydrates; my hips and they get along famously. For the Final Four games today, my friends and I got together, grilled in the sunshine, made lots of delicious food and watched our dogs wrestle. Great day. And of course, for any sporting event, I have to have game food...hence, the pretzels. I didn't take a single picture of the process, because a) I wasn't planning on blogging about it, and b) my kitchen is a hot mess because I had the harebrained idea to make the pretzels at the last minute, when I really didn't have time. There is a film of white flour all over my kitchen, from my haphazard kneading, trying to get together the dough, give it the requisite hour to rise, form the pretzels, poach and then bake them all before the games started. It looks like a drug bust in a movie.
Needless to say, I was late. But the pretzels were worth it. My friends are the greatest; we always bring tons of food and we always have a great time. Everything is shared, even if you didn't have time to run to the store to grab some meat to throw on the grill. There's always extra. I was very happy to say, however, that of the 32 mini soft pretzels I baked, there were exactly zero left over, from a crowd of 10 (and 2 pleading dogs).
It's amazing how the simplest recipe yields such perfect little pretzels. It's so basic - water, yeast, sugar, flour, salt, finished with an egg wash and some coarse salt - yet somehow it has that distinctive pretzel taste, and not just your average dinner roll. Salty, sweet, buttery bread, twisted into tiny knots - I've died and gone to carb-heaven.
I'll have to make them again soon, and take pictures. Especially since there are none left. Nom nom nom.
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