Leiah’s Cinnamon Sugar Soft Pretzels
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My older sister Leiah is so good at so many things that it almost doesn’t seem fair that she has also always been an amazing baker. She’s also always been in love with carbs! As a teenager her arsenal of after school snacks mostly consisted of copious amounts of red vines or flour tortillas rolled up with either peanut butter and whipped cream or butter and cinnamon sugar. On the few weekends that she wasn’t busy with basketball, choir, drama, or church activities she would often bake! In fact, the first time that I met my husband was in 1998 when Leiah brought me over to his house so that she could bake cookies with his big sister who she was friends with. If I remember correctly, those cookies were for her boyfriend. Of course she didn’t want our parents to know that she was baking cookies for a boy so she bribed me to keep quiet about the whole endeavor. I believe my price was a few cookies and five bucks, which I should probably return to her since I told my parents about the secret boyfriend cookies a couple of years ago. Is there a statute of limitations on snitchery?
Cookies weren’t the only thing she was good at making! These pretzels were a specialty of hers, and our Grandma Thornton liked them so much that she included Leiah’s recipe in her family favorites cookbook many years later along with a sweet little drawing of what the finished pretzels should look like.
When I went to make the recipe today I was a little concerned about the fact that it was an unenriched, very plain dough- no eggs, milk, or fat of any kind added to the dough at all. However I was pleasantly surprised with the chewiness and great pretzely texture of the finished product! I can’t help but think that Leiah’s soft pretzel dough would make great bagels. I have also done these in the past with a savory garlic parmesan topping instead of the cinnamon sugar, and they are delicious that way as well.
Editor’s Note: The main image is...not great. We were crunched on time and these got eaten up so quick that there wasn’t a chance to take another shot! That picture of the butter spread though, that’s positively decadent! Go ahead, make that one big and take a good long look; I won’t tell anyone!
I remember that time Alyssa came to our house with Leiah because I was instantly smitten. Leiah came with my family on a camping trip some time later, she and my sister Clarissa teased me with a picture of Alyssa, telling me I was going to marry her one day. I pretended to be ruffled by that, but deep down, I’d hoped that was true.
“Food for us comes from our relatives... Food has a culture. It has a history. It has a story. It has relationships.”
Leiah’s Cinnamon Sugar Soft Pretzels
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cups warm water
- 1 package yeast
- 3 ½ to 4 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3-4 tablespoons melted butter
Instructions
- Pour water into a mixing bowl, sprinkle with yeast, and stir until dissolved. Add 1 cup of water, salt, and sugar and beat with a wooden spoon. Add the rest of the flour 1 cup at a time until a soft workable dough forms.
- Knead for 5-7 minutes. Roll dough to a rectangle on a floured board and cut into long strips making 6-12 strips depending on how large or small you want your pretzels to be (I made 10 pretzels). Six pieces makes nice large pretzels. Shape as pretzels on greased baking sheet. Let rise momentarily while you talk about cute boys.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until the bottoms are lightly golden brown. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
- Serve warm or let cool.
