Alton Brown's Soft Pretzels

This is Alton Brown.

"My brain is like your brain, but better."

He's like the mad scientist of the Food Network. (Guy Fieri is the crazy uncle, Paula Deen is the grandma everyone loves, and Ina Garten is the mom who makes everyone behave. This announcement was brought to you compliments of my over-active imagination. You're welcome. )

He also has created a superb soft pretzel recipe.

Please excuse this grody (but clean!) baking sheet.
As surely as I crave all things salty, it shall be left behind when we move. 

I crave salty things occasionally. You all may be privy to this. The other evening, I was craving; needing; greatly desiring salty pretzels. And these pretzels; they satiated my pretzel fetish. Amen.

These pretzels tasted exactly how I wanted them to: a slightly tough, salted, golden exterior with that characteristically chewy interior.

The recipe is dreamy; not only because the result was so wonderful, but because the recipe itself was thought out and written well. Ever since I've started reading Cook's Illustrated magazine, I've had a whole new appreciation for recipes that are well written and reliable (Recipes! That are tested! Over and over again until they reach perfection! What a concept!). Coincidentally, that reasoning is also why I'm such a huge fan of this website, but that's an obsession for another day. 

My iPhone takes better pictures than my digital camera.
I just thought you all should know that. 

There are two things you need to know about these pretzels. First, there's only one left in our house (I halved the following recipe and made eight small pretzels). That's right: between the two of us, Ryan and I ate seven of these for dinner. Mostly because we were watching football, and it just seemed appropriate somehow.

Secondly, this pretzel recipe marks the first time I have successfully hand-kneaded a dough. Since my Kitchen Aid mixer is currently half a continent away, I've had to learn how to knead dough by hand. (Let's all take a moment to shed a tear for our separation.) See, I usually am so fearful of over-kneading that I don't knead enough and end up with incredibly dense bread that's barely risen.

This pretzel dough and I, however, were BFFs (that's best friend forever, for those of you who skipped middle school). Smitten Kitchen's kneading tips helped a lot. I kneaded, and I kneaded, and I kneaded and before I knew it, I had an elastic cohesive dough, just like she talked about.

I'm not going to lie; I also worked up a sweat. I was seriously kneading for like fifteen minutes. But considering that my pretzels came out soft, chewy, and generally divine, I've come to terms with it.

Oh, and one last thing - I substituted coarse sea salt for pretzel salt. Because honestly, who has pretzel salt on hand?

Here's the recipe, grace à Food Network. If you crave salty things, you'll love it. If you have a husband who likes snacks, he will thank you twice for making them (I know of what I speak). If you like carbs - oh baby - you'll love these Homemade Soft Pretzels!