Perfect Pretzel Rolls

Pinterest is my enemy and my friend. It's like shopping in that if you keep seeing the same thing again and again, you're eventually going to buy it because you can't get it out of your head. I couldn't get these pretzel rolls out of my head. There are several different recipes out there. I tried one from Mel's Kitchen Cafe randomly and it worked well enough. Here is the basic recipe with my own directions.

Pretzel Rolls

Dough
1 cup milk, warm
3/4 cup water, warm
1 tsp salt
1 T oil
4 cups bread flour

make in bread machine on dough setting

Boiling Solution (pretend you're doing potions!)
3 quarts water
1/4 cup baking soda
1 T. sugar

**prepare 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper  to bake 8 rolls on each
** preheat oven to 400°

Instructions

Make your bread dough with a bread machine. Otherwise, use a nice cookbook to find instructions.

Divide dough into 16 sections and make into balls. I like to pinch the dough on the bottom to create a slight mushroom shape which I then keep pinching on the bottom, creating a nice tight ball shape. I tuck the ends under and it looks fancy.

Bring the boiling solution to ... uh, a boil.

 

It looks supernatural to me. (I pretend I'm at Hogwarts.) Put in a few balls of dough and boil for 1 minute. Turn them over and boil another 30 seconds or so.

Take them out with a slotted spoon and put them on the cookie sheets nicely.

I put 8 on each sheet.

 

Score the top of each roll with a razor. Don't deflate the dough by using any old knife. Razoring breaks the top of the cooked dough without squishing it and allows the roll to expand as it bakes. It also makes a beautiful color patterns on the dough.

Sprinkle with kosher salt and bake for 25-30 minutes or until they are lovely and brown.

We ate these plain, but I think they would be great made into sliders or little sandwiches for a party. They really tasted like pretzels. My teenaged son put it on our list of "Foods to Keep Making". That's a win for the Eddys!

p.s. The original instructions called for baking the rolls at 425° for 22 minutes, but my parchment paper nearly caught fire, so I have modified the instructions to save you from possibly burning down your house in the pursuit of pretzel rolls. You're welcome.

{edit 2/9/14:  I made more of these with polish sausage in the middle and they baked up GREAT! Think bagel dogs, only homemade!!!}