mall pretzel — Housewife's Whimsy

My Mom and I were talking the other day about making homemade pretzels. When she asked how I made them, I mentioned that I typically use my breadmaker to prepare the dough. She doesn’t have a breadmaker anymore so she was slightly disappointed that she couldn’t prepare them the same way. That conversation got me thinking, how did I made pretzels and pretzel bites before I had a breadmaker?I remembered that I used Rhodes prepared dinner rolls. I decided to put together a little post on making these since I happened to have a bag of rolls in my freezer. They are super yummy and VERY easy! The most time spent is waiting for the dough to defrost and rise. While I use Rhodes rolls you can use any prepared raw dough you like. Just make sure it is fully defrosted before you start, or else you’re going to end up with a nasty finished product.

There are several different schools of thought on using baking soda to make homemade pretzels. Some people think you can simply soak the pretzels in a baking soda bath. However, I’ve never had good luck with this. I prefer to boil the raw dough in the baking soda bath for approximately 1 minute. I feel like this gives it time to fully absorb what it needs to nicely brown.I like brushing the butter onto these just after they’ve come out of the oven. This gives them that buttery flavor you’d get from a mall pretzel. I only use salt on these, however if you wanted to use cinnamon sugar instead you could have sweet pretzel bites. Just make sure you sprinkle whatever topping you use generously. In my opinion you can never have too much flavor on these!

Easy Pretzel Bites:12 Unbaked Rhodes Dinner Rolls or other raw prepared dough2 Cups Water¼ Cup Baking Soda2 Tablespoons Butter (melted)Kosher Salt

Defrost the dough and allow it to rise until doubled.Preheat the oven to 400 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Using greased scissors cut the dinner rolls in quarters.Combine the water and baking soda in a small saucepan on high heat. When you reach a rolling boil begin to add the raw dough.

Cook until the dough has inflated, approximately 1 minute per batch. Remove with a slotted spoon, shaking off the excess water.Place the dough on the baking sheet and repeat with the rest of the dough chunks.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until the dough is lightly browned.Remove from the oven and brush generously with the butter.

Sprinkle liberally with the kosher salt and enjoy!

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