If you’re just joining us, our family is trying to make from scratch some of our favorite store-bought items. Our goal is to eat less processed food and make our favorite foods a bit healthier. I’m sharing our experiences and our family’s feedback on each experiment. You can find all of our Make It Healthier posts here.
Our latest experiment in making a favorite food was homemade soft pretzels. We used to buy the frozen ones when they were on sale, and we all liked them. While the frozen ones weren’t the worst thing we ate health-wise, we still wanted to try making our own.
Why It’s Healthier:
The recipe we used included more whole what flour than all-purpose flour. They were also low in sugar.
Our Experience:
This experiment was fun for me because I had a little helper. She was excited about trying to make pretzels like they do at the shop at the mall. Since we were working on a floured surface, she also got to wear her special apron. That’s always a win. 😉 The prep time for the pretzels was pretty quick. We have a stand mixer (this Breville one from Amazon), and that made a huge difference. The dough had to be kneaded for 10 minutes. We were able to turn the mixer on and sing, dance, and be silly clean up the kitchen while it kneaded.
The dough was stretchy, so we had a little trouble getting it rolled out into ropes before we twisted them. We found that working together (one person stretching the dough, one person rolling it) worked best for us. Emma had a great time forming the pretzels. She tried grabbing both ends and swinging them all at once into a pretzel shape… She succeeded once! She even made a pretzel E for herself.
The recipe didn’t make a ton of pretzels. If I was having company and wanted these for a snack (which I’m sure I’ll do in the future), I would probably double the recipe.
My Family’s Reaction:
This recipe got thumbs up from all of us, especially the little chef. I liked that she was able to help with all the steps. We thought that the pretzels might taste good with a little bit of honey mixed in (a sort of honey-wheat flavor). We also thought that next time we might try what they do at the mall shop… skip the salt on top, brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with cinnamon & sugar.
We noticed that the pretzels lost their crunchy outer layer once they were sealed in a bowl. When we wanted to eat some of the leftovers, we popped them into the toaster oven for a few minutes. They crisped up nicely!
The How-To:
If you want to try making your own homemade soft pretzels, you can find the recipe here.
