Sweet Treat Sunday

What do you do on a lazy Sunday, when you know the power is getting ready to go out?

(At least every weekend, Newtok shuts the power down for a few hours to fix something…)

You decide it's the right time to fix Auntie Anne's Pretzels!

My Aunt Rosalind and Mrs. Moore sent us a great care package a few months ago with the kit to make these pretzels. We kept putting it off for just the right time, and today happened to be it!

So we turned on the tunes and prepared the most amazing pretzels!

The kit was nice because it came with every ingredient. All we had to do was make sure we had everything else (which we improvised sometimes). 

Our work station. The only counter space we have so it became a little crowded at times.

We had to prepare the yeast in hot water, then Joshua mixed in the flour. Below is him kneading the dough. Great job, babe! 

That's good kneading!

The next part called for us to put the ball in a lightly greased bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Remember how I said we had to improvise on some things.. this was one of them. We do not have plastic wrap, so Joshua came up with the idea of covering it with half of a ziploc bag. They turned out well, so apparently it did it's job!

We left it like this for about thirty minutes in a warm spot - on top of the heater.

We then could move on to the fun part - actually making them into pretzels!

First step: cutting them up into strips.

Second step: rolling them and twisting them.

Side note: This is a lot harder to do than what you think. 

For instance, this was our first attempt at making one…

See what I mean? 

It also helps to read the directions. I thought it said to make the strips 8 inches long - it really said 36 inches. Makes sense, right?!

So after this, it was my job to cut the strips and start rolling them out, and Joshua finished rolling them then shaped them.

Here is the correct way to make a pretzel:

Start by making a "U":

Then you double twist the tops: 

And lastly, you pull the twists down and squish the dough together to make it stay:

Looks a lot better than our first attempt!

Then if you have extra pieces of dough, not big enough to make a whole pretzel, you make a cute little heart - since all of these were made with love.

The couple who cooks together, stays together!

The kit said it makes 10 - we made 9. Not too shabby for our first time!

(We did not count the heart as one.)

The kit even gave us salt and brown sugar to make a variety of different kinds.

So that's what we did…

 ^^ The salted ones.

^^ The brown sugar ones.

And for a nice kick, we even melted cheese with jalapeños for an even tastier treat!

(The good news: the power didn't even go out until we were almost finished.. good timing!)

So after making these pretzels, what did we decide… We should never get a job at an Auntie Anne's. We aren't cut out to make pretzels, unfortunately.

Not a lot to do on a weekend here in Newtok, Alaska. So this is considered a day date for the hubs and I! (Since there won't be much of those come next semester!)

Hope everyone had a good Sunday!