Baked Sunday Mornings: Whole-Wheat Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels

I was pretty excited about this week's Baked Sunday Mornings assignment, "Whole-Wheat Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels." I have been known to stop by Auntie Anne's in the mall or at the airport to pick up a pretzel; I usually get an original with salt, or an almond pretzel. I had never contemplated making my own soft pretzels at home.

I was surprised that the recipe was not difficult. You rub some butter into a mixture of flour (half bread flour, half whole-wheat flour) and salt, and combine it with yeast that has been activated with warm water and honey. After in few minutes in the mixer with a dough hook, you have a elastic dough. You let the dough rise for an hour until it doubles, after which you divide it into pieces and form each piece into a rope and the classic pretzel shape. You let the formed pretzels rest for a bit, briefly boil them in water and baking soda, and bake. After you take the pretzels out of the oven, you brush them with melted butter and sprinkle on a mixture of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

The first time I made the pretzels, they were terrible. While they looked gorgeous, the taste and texture was just awful. After considering what could have gone wrong, I checked my whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur white whole wheat), and I realized that it had an off smell and had gone bad. I keep a lot of different flours on hand, but whole wheat is the type I use least often. Even though I store it in the freezer, it takes me a long time -- sometimes too long -- to get through a five-pound bag.

I bought a fresh bag of flour and needless to say, the pretzels made with non-rancid flour were a tremendous improvement. I also made some salted pretzels (one of the variations suggested in the cookbook) by brushing the boiled pretzels with egg yolk and sprinkling on fleur de sel before baking. All of the pretzels were a deep golden brown and looked scrumptious.

The cinnamon-sugar pretzels were okay, but (and I can't believe I'm saying this) they weren't as good as the ones at the mall. I think that boiling the pretzels for a total of two minutes each was probably too long. Other soft pretzel recipes I've found have a shorter boiling time, and some of my pretzels were a little soggy after the boiling. In addition, the pretzels seemed to have taken on too much baking soda flavor, and the crust had an excessive bitterness/sourness that was not harmonious with the cinnamon and sugar. In fact, I thought that the salted version of the pretzels was better. When it comes to yeasted cinnamon-sugar breads, I think that the Monkey Bread from Baked Explorations is far superior.

Recipe: "Whole-Wheat Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels" from Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.