By Beth
I'd never made pretzels before, I've watched them being made at Auntie Anne's loads of times, made play-doh pretzels and sat like a pretzel in kindergarten but actually making edible pretzels was something I'd never done. I think we partly put it on the list because I'd never done it and because we needed some things that wouldn't cost millions of dollars and could be done on a whim, with very little planning. Plus, it sounded like fun.
I came to Lara's for her annual Anti-Valentines party on February 14th. For more information on that, ask Lara, I won't steal her thunder. We had already decided to make pretzels the next day. I brought Boromir along for the ride this time. He and Captain Jack get along, most of the time, and he wanted to get off my bookshelf. (FYI: Boromir is an action figure who acts as my mascot, much like Captain Jack does for Lara; I love Sean Bean but they don't make Sean Bean action figures; Boromir is the next best thing as Sean Bean played him in Lord of the Rings) Both men wanted a piece of the action in the kitchen but they were firmly shooed away, pirates and men of Gondor do not have the best habits when it comes to personal hygiene. We did take their picture with the ingredients though, mostly to appease them, then they were sent away to plot some kind of beach castle building.
We started by making the dough, easy enough, I'd at least done that before. We kneaded and pummelled and hammered, got out the sledge hammer and took that to it for a while. Lara told me when it was done, I was having too much fun pounding the thing. We then had to leave it sit so it could rise, or so Lara said. I'd never made pretzels before, once again (it seems to be happening a lot this year) I am at Lara's mercy. She could tell me we needed to suspend the dough from the rafters and I'd probably believe her, although she wouldn't be able to say it with a straight face!
So we left to give the dough time to rise. I need to mention at this point that it was cold. It was February and while we were technically in the south (below the Mason-Dixon line) winter there is still cold. This fact will become important later. I don't really remember what we did while we were leaving the dough for an hour. Shopping seems unlikely given the way we both feel towards malls. Ask Lara, she probably remembers. When we got back the dough did not look much different to me. Lara, however, seemed satisfied that it was ready to be made into pretzels. Whatever.
She set water to boil and once it was boiling we started shaping the pretzels. Now, you know when you watch thos kids at Auntie Anne's make pretzels? They're whipping the dough around and twisting it so fast their hands are a blur, they make it look so easy. And I spend a lot of time in Auntie Anne's lines, I would have thought I could do this no problem. Apparently not. Kind of like you can't just watch someone rewire a toaster to learn, you have to do it yourself. Here is the part where the fact that it is cold becomes important.
Lara begins whipping her dough around like there's no tomorrow, her pretzels are shaped perfectly, taunting mine as I try and fail to get the perfect pretzel shape. After trying with one piece of dough for a while, I have a lump. In my defense, the dough was cold, the temperature outside was cold, and the dough kept shrinking! But only the pieces I took off the pile of dough. Lara continued to make perfect pretzels. I finally resigned myself to the fact that my pretzels would never look like pretzles and put the lumps in the boiling water, waiting for them to either sink or float (I can't remember which it was), sprinkled them with kosher salt and stuck them in the oven.
Lara's pretzels came out looking like, well, pretzels. Perfectly proportioned precise pretzels. Mine? To put it nicely, they were passable. To be honest, they looked like turds. Little whitish brown turds with salt on them. No matter how hard I tried to shape that dough and get it in the water looking like a pretzel, the dough (which was cold!) kept shrinking, paling in comparison to Lara's creations.
For the record, the pretzels I made tasted just as good as Lara's. They weren't nearly as appetizing to look at but the taste was delicious! I would heartily reccomend trying this at home, just make sure it's warm or the dough will shrink. I think that's why it looks so easy for those kids at Auntie Anne's. It's warm behind the counter, plus the pretzels they make are bigger.
Tip of the day: When making pretzels, beware of cold dough shrinkage!