Miniature Garlic, Herb, and Nooch Soft Pretzels

Hot soft pretzels and "cheese."

I have missed baking pretzels-- a favorite baking snack. I have seen them all over the place, at art openings, shopping complexes, and movie theaters. Those are often made with butter and a hint of whey.
Last night, the craving struck like lightning. I answered the call. After all, it doesn't take much to make pretzels. Every ingredient is readily available in the pantry. Pretzel making is similar to pizza dough. There is art in kneading, in working hands in the flour and oil, pinching and pulling, enjoying the fragrant garlic and the look of the golden oil coating pliant brown dough.
Once the shapes are made and the baking sheet is in the oven, heaven is moments away. The smell fills the whole kitchen. Torturous minutes tick away as the mouth waters and eyes stare longingly at the lit oven door.
Alas, the chewy, crisp pretzels are warm and tasty. Easily the best batch that I've ever made so far.

Miniature Garlic, Herb, and Nooch Pretzels Ingredients and Preparation

3/4 cup warm water
2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon dry active yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic
1/4 black pepper
3 cup flour
3 tablespoon olive oil

3 cup water
2 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix water, sugar, and yeast together. Let sit for five minutes.
Add salt, garlic, and black pepper. Stir in one cup of flour at a time.
Massage and knead dough with olive oil.
Place dough in a bowl and cover.
Let sit for a hour or two.

Formed pretzel shapes. Some better than others. Managed to make ten.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Bring water and baking soda to boil. Add one pretzel at a time.
Once pretzels float up, they're ready to be taken out. Let drip before placing on baking sheet.

Sprinkle Italian seasoning, garlic, and nooch on the pretzels. Bake for 15 minutes.

Hot and fresh from the oven.

A bowl of pretzels makes anyone happy.

Pretzels with smoky cashew cheese sauce for dipping.

Amazing!

Vegan Mofo 2014 Day 6: Miniature Whole Wheat Soft Pretzels

Little pretzels makes us feel less guilty about making larger ones.

After three weeks of an otherwise super busy fall season, with school officially going David Lynch crazy, tomorrow three critics ae heading into my studio to see what I'm up to. Some of which, I've never met before. So I'm a little over excited and nervous at the same time. It's like opening a Christmas gift and no sure if liking what's underneath crisp holiday wrapper. Critics are a gift anyway. There are pros and cons to every artist's studio practice. I'm anxious to learn what can be added and subtracted from mine. Hopefully the millions of books (art books, novels, journals, and what not) and snacks (Kettle Maple Bacon Chips, bananas, Clif bars, chocolate memorabilia) will not be an absolute problem. We just had a talk last week where studios should be treatd primarily as work space. Yet all my books and snacks make working easier. 
Enough school chirping. that is until tomorrow. Taste the Nom Nom rolls onward with delicious baked good heaven. Something that I could bring into the studio, but won't because they're way better at home with a mug of steamed tea and corny romance novels.
I love fresh, hot, and straight out of the oven pretzels! They're the best! Here I use my traditional pretzel recipe, but minimized the size. I'm not thinking in waste line terms. I'm thinking in the selfish, gluttonous mathematical equation. Why have one large pretzel when you can have two small ones?  I like imagining that having two pretzels is better. That way when you polish off one and lick fingers clean of false buttery Italian seasoned bliss, the other is waiting still warm and utterly patient.

Miniature Whole Wheat Soft Pretzels Ingredients and Preparation

3/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon active dry yeast

3 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
3 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 cup water

Mix sugar, yeast, and water together. Let sit for 10 minutes or until foamy.
Add salt.
Pour in flour in at 1 cup at a time. 
Massage and knead Italian seasoning and olive oil onto dough, doing this for a good 10 minutes.
Place into oiled bowl and cover for an hour.
An hour later, beat down risen dough and cut into eight equal parts.
Prepare baking soda bath and preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Out of the eight parts, individually make skinny spaghetti like strips and fold into desired pretzel shape.
Drop pretzel into bath for 30 seconds.
Dry onto cloth and then place onto baking sheet.

Brush extra olive oil atop pretzels and extra Italian seasoning.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Fully baked.

The pretzel party.

Plate and serve.

Try really really hard to eat just one. Please try.

Amazing Vegan Jalapeno Garlic Mozzarella Pretzels

Jalapeno Garlic Havarti &  Mozzarella baked right in these delicious pretzels.

Pretzels! Pretzels! Pretzels!
I seriously cannot get enough of making pretzels and make them at least once a month.
With no bread and leftover Daiya Jalapeno Garlic Wedges staring at me every time the refrigerator door opened, it was time to not think just sandwiches factor, but of another dough variety. It hit my head like a lightning bolt- pretzels! Let's make one of my favorite snacks, but with melted slices layered atop my traditional recipe. Also adding Mozzarella Shreds and additional sprinkles of Italian seasonings blend, these mouthwatering, chewy, cheesy twists will create a kind of habit forming and aren't called "amazing" for nothing!
Next time must amp up the flavor profile by adding tiny pieces of kick butt jalapenos for a real satisfying pretzel!

Amazing Vegan Jalapeno Garlic Mozzarella Pretzels Ingredients and Preparation

3/4 cup warm water
2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry active yeast
2 1/2 cup flour
2 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoon nutritional yeast
2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cup water
Daiya Jalapeno Garlic Havarti
1/4 cup Trader Joe's Mozzarella Vegan Shreds

In a small bowl, combine water, sugar, and salt.
Sprinkle the yeast atop and let sit for 5 minutes.

Knead in the flour- 1/2 cup at a time.

Add in the olive oil, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, & Italian seasonings. Keep kneading.

Place dough into a well oiled bowl & cover for an hour.

Once hour has passed, preheat oven to 420 degrees & bring baking soda & water to a boil.

Cut dough into four parts, rub between fingertips to make skinny strips, & twist into desired pretzel shape.

Stick these into the baking soda bath, one at a time for 20-30 seconds, & drip dry them before placing on baking sheet.

Layer pretzels with thin slices of Jalapeno Havarti Cheese.

Some are striped & others are covered in the wedges!

Sprinkle on mozzarella shreds & an additional does of Italian seasonings.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is a golden brown.

Cool or eat warm & hot.

Yum!!!

Vegan Maple Orange Glazed Cinnamon Pretzels

These sweet citrus infused pretzels will make anybody's day!

Last night's mood called for a sugary induced treat, especially when a beloved show is going off the air, yes Private Practice, Shonda Rhimes' second television venture, a spin off to her hit, Grey's Anatomy was leaving the airwaves forever in quite a short but bittersweet thirteen episode season.
Pretzels take time to make and this batch had to be special commemoration to the staff at Oceanside Wellness Center.
With orange and maple blended with warm notes of cinnamon and ginger, delectable baked twisted dough caused a stir on the taste buds, all hot and appealing, making fingers sticky and lickable as a river of tears coursed down my cheeks.
It's like hot crossed buns, but in pretzel form! So delicious!
One doesn't have to watch sad series finales to enjoy them. :D

Maple Orange Glazed Pretzels Ingredients

3/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon yeast
3 tablespoon almond oil
2 tablespoon orange juice (used Tropicana Orange Juice)
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 1/2 cup flour

Maple Orange Glaze

1/4 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of ginger

Baking Soda Bath

2 cups water
1 tablespoon baking soda

Topping

Extra cinnamon
Valencia Orange Peel Seasoning

Mix water, sugar, and salt.
Sprinkle on the yeast.
Let sit for five minutes.
Add the ingredients save for flour.
Gradually mix in the flour 1 cup at a time.

Cover and let rise for an hour.

This didn't rise very high, but it'll do. Bring baking soda water to a boil while cutting, rolling, and creating pretzel shapes.

Lay each pretzel into boiling baking soda bath.

Marinate in maple glaze- flipping over. This should be a minute or so.

Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Some of the maple orange glaze created a brown caramel onto the baking sheet. Scraped what could be saved and brushed onto pretzels.

Extra cinnamon love.

With Valencia Orange Peel Seasoning scattered atop, mimicking traditional salt crystals.

Yum!

These Yummy Vegan Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

Italian spices and nutritional yeast baked right in!

I've had a craving for unsalted "buttery" pretzels for a while, especially hot and freshly baked from the oven. 
At a movie theater, the server made me one, but it sorely lacked. Bland and flavorless, I almost cried, wishing for that $5 back. He went through all that work so of course I wasn't going to complain in his face.
Still, why does unsalted and vegan equate to crispy, tasteless dough?
Twisted Sisters Pretzels
Research led me to this cutesy blog called Peas And Thank You. Featuring a deliciously interesting recipe written by a humorous vegan mama, not only is this a keeper, so is the site. My mouth is already drooling at the thought of Triple Chocolate Zucchini Cake....
Mmmmhmmmmmm chocolate.
Ahem!!
Oh yes.
Pretzels.
Back to pretzels.
Well, lots of work involved in the creative process of pretzel making, but in the end, it's all worth it.
Funnily enough, I used olive oil instead of Earth Balance.

Yummy Vegan Pretzels

3/4 cup warm water
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 flour
8 cups water
2/3 cups baking soda
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Mix warm, sugar, and salt together in a bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Add the olive oil.

Gradually stir in the flour. This is at 1 cup added.

2nd cup of flour.

After last remaining 1/2 cup, knead the dough for 5 minutes more, adding more flour if needed. Or kneaded? ;)

In an oiled bowl, set the dough, cover, and let rise for an hour.

Olivia aides in the only part she can- the waiting period!

Cut dough into 4 sections. Mine weren't equal. Also at this point place water and baking soda on the stove and preheat oven to 450 degrees!

Remembering Auntie Annie's in the mall, I tried to make the best shape possible. Obviously need to see a Pretzel Jedi Master.

Four wannabe looking like pretzels raring to go.

Once water is at a boil, gently place in one pretzel at a time, leaving them in for 30 seconds.

Once they are on a greased cookie sheet, place desired seasonings on top.

12-15 minutes later, pretzel glory awaits!

Drizzled extra virgin olive oil on top.

Mmmmmmmhmmmmmmm!!!!
Not bad for a first try.
These pretzels are sooooooo good, especially with the seasonings on top. Better than anything at the movie theater. Hot, soft, & "buttery," the texture was all there.
Impressed with how they turned out.
Seriously, there were a few cringeworthy moments, but I'm so very happy with the final results.
Poor Olivia.
Since my kitty usually misses out on the good stuff, I didn't eat it in front of her, preferring to devour my hot salvation in the corner and immediately washing my hands clean from seasony, olive oil aftermath.
Now she'll never know!  ;)