Pretzel Bites

Okay these pretzels from The Slow Roasted Italian are the BOMB! They were unbelievably easy to make but have the quality of "mall pretzel bites.......but BETTER!" (as said by my kids) They don't feel or taste like you just cut up some dough and put them in the oven. They are amazing! My only regret is that I only made one batch. It was enough for our family of 4 ( and a half if you count the little guy who hate maybe 3 and then focused on his chips), but we all were kind of sad that they were gone so I would have loved to have some leftovers! Oh, the best part? You don't need to wait for the dough to rise.

I read a few recipes for pretzel bites and read through comments. I saw a lot of people complaining of their second or third batches coming out with a really bitter taste to them. Everyone seemed to conclude that it must have been because they put their pretzel bites into the baking soda bath, baked them in the oven, and then put the next round of pretzel bites into the baking soda bath (rather than having all of the bites in the baking soda bath without long waiting times between more being added into the bath).

So, in my directions I have you getting all of your pretzel bites in and out of the baking soda bath before you bake any of the them. They all turned out great, so who knows if waiting to put in other batches later on causes a bitter taste.

What you will need:

• 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 1 1/4 C warm milk (110*-120*)
• 2 T honey or sugar
• 3 1/4 C flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 C baking soda
• 8 quart pot of water
• 1 egg, beaten with 2 tsp. cold water

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450*
• Warm your milk up and pour into the bowl of a stand mixer
• Sprinkle the yeast into the milk
• Add the sugar to feed the yeast
• Let the yeast get nice and foamy, about ten minutes
• Once the yeast is ready, add in the salt and mix together with the paddle attachment
• Add in the flour, one cup at a time. You want the dough to be tacky but not sticky. (I ended up with 3 cups and 3 tablespoons)
• Once your dough is ready, replace the paddle attachment with a dough hook and knead for about 3 minutes
• While that's kneading, spray your counter top lightly with some non stick spray. Using flour will make the dough too difficult to work with
• Turn your dough out onto the counter and divide (I just used a pizza cutter) into quarters. 
• Start boiling your 8 quart pot of water
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with non stick spray, set aside.
• Beat one egg with 2 tsp cold water, set aside
• Grab one of the dough quarters and divide that piece into 4 more pieces
• Roll out each of those 4 pieces gently until you can cut at least 4 pretzel bite size pieces from it
• Continue on with the rest of the dough, you should end up with at least 64 pretzel bites
• Carefully add the baking soda into the boiling water
• Dump a bunch of the pretzel bites into the boiling water and let it sit for about 20 seconds
• Remove with a spatula or slotted spoon of some kind and place onto the baking sheet
• Do this with all of the pretzel bites until they have all been in the baking soda bath 
• Brush pretzel bites with egg wash and add kosher salt
• Bake for about 15 minutes (mine were done after 10)