Oh my goodness, they were good. I used Annie's Eats' recipe, and found it easy to follow and delicious.
Some notes from my experience:
-It would be a lot easier to do with a stand mixer. I mixed by hand, which probably didn't mix the dough as thoroughly. It liked to split and pull apart when I tried to roll it out and shape the pretzels. You can see the splits in the finished product.
-The recipe makes it sound pretty easy to separate, roll out, and shape the dough. It was more time consuming than I expected. Maybe it's just my inexperience, but it was a lot of work for 8 pretzels.
-They look pretty wimpy until you put them in the baking soda and boiling water. This plumps them up before they go in the oven.
-Really coat the pretzels with the egg wash. I didn't do it very thickly and they didn't brown like I was expecting, so they were a tad too crisp.
-I didn't have kosher salt, so I left them unsalted. I like unsalted pretzels anyways, though.
-They didn't turn out as pretty as Annie's, but they tasted darn good so I didn't mind.
-They are absolutely delicious.
-The recipe makes eight and I ate them all in a weekend. For lunch, snack, and dinner. Delicious.
-You should try it! Mine weren't perfect and took more time than I expected, but oh they were so good.
I took Annie's suggestion and froze the leftovers. Then I just heated them in the microwave for a minute or until warm, and they tasted soft and delicious. If I were to make these for a party or something, I would definitely take this route.
I prefer mine with spicy jalapeno cheddar cheese dip. I also used sour cream as a topping when I ran out of cheese. No pretzel is complete without some kind of dip!
Finding these pictures on my computer makes me drool a little, and makes me want to make them again. Maybe I'll need to find a chunk of time to play with yeast again? Maybe some caffeine too if I attempt these before next weekend...
YUM! I've been wanting to make these for a while!
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