Pretzel Dogs

Froggy and I tried something fun and new in the kitchen this week.  We made pretzel dogs together.  The dough is pretty simple and similar to any other bread dough.  We used this recipe. Once the dough was mixed up,  it rose once in the mixing bowl and then the fun began.    

First we divided the dough into 8 equal parts and turned those parts into ropes.  The recipe called for 12 but I could not make 12 equal parts.  Then we wrapped the ropes around the hot dogs.  We are not really hot dog people so I used organic, uncured all beef hot dogs hoping they would be better. 

 There was some extra dough leftover after we wrapped all the dogs.  So we made regular shaped pretzels. 

 And then came the special pretzel making part - the hot water bath.  Which is all I thought it was before.  Turns out you need to put baking soda into the boiling water before you bathe your pretzels.  The recipe says to leave them in approximately one minute or until they float.  Ours floated right away but we left them in for a minute anyway.

 

Then we lined them up on the baking stone and into the super hot oven (500) they went. They were not so pretty anymore because some had gotten smooshed and stuck to the wax paper while they waited for their bath.

 

And here they are out of the oven.  We had to cook them longer than the recipe called for but I suspect that had a fair amount to do with how cold the dogs were when they got wrapped.  Froggy who rarely ever eats a hot dog ate a whole one at dinner and 3/4 of one for lunch the next day.

*Froggy watched me writing this and wanted to read it when it was done.  You have her to thank for the proper grammar since she edited it in two different places.