Preztel Making Time

I had seen the Auntie Anne's pretzel baking kits in Walmart lots of times before and knew that my girlfriend, Kelly, had done them with her family and said it wasn't too bad, so I decided to pick one up myself.  Last weekend we decided we would finally make them because we were all home with not much to do. 

My plan was to make them for an afternoon snack.  So we didn't get started around 2:30 or so.  Yep, I should have opened the box beforehand to read the directions.  (By the way, I'm not a fan of reading directions, I would rather just scan them.  I should know better, I know).  So I scanned the directions and thought oh, this isn't bad, we just add some stuff to the water, then add the pretzel mix and wha-la, we're ready!  Nope! Once everything was opened and too late to turn back, I then saw that you mix it all together and it has to sit for about 30 minutes for the yeast to rise.  Great! Now it was cutting it close to dinner and since dinner has become somewhat of a battle to get the kids to eat everything without whining, this wasn't good. 

We decided that it would have to just sit until after dinner and then we could finish them up.  I should also add that because I only half read the directions, I added a little too much water to the yeast mix.  This most likely added to the stickiness funk that the dough became.  Sigh...just when you're trying to do something fun for the kids.  Read the directions, people.  I've learned it!

After dinner we came back to the dough, which had finally risen a little since it had been sitting there for at least triple the time it was supposed to.  We dumped it out like the directions said and it was more on the sticky side, than doughy like I imagined it was supposed to be.  So much so that neither one of the kids wanted to even touch it.  I can't blame them, I didn't want to either.  So much for the kids making their very own pretzels.  And you had to dip them in a special mixture before putting them on the pan, which made our sticky pretzels stretch out way past the size we wanted them to be. 

Ginormous sized pretzels

Finally, the kids and I gave up and let the pretzel master take over.  Patrick must have secretly worked for Auntie Anne's before because he made prefectly shaped pretzel, well as perfect as they could be after I screwed them up. 

Aiden looking super bored

The Pretzel Master

Working hard to make sure it's just right!

At least they tasted yummy when they were all done. 

Watching the pretzels cook

Emma wants to see how they're doing too

I'm ready for my pretzel, please!

Emma and her little pretzel

Aiden and his giant "A" pretzel

So overall, our pretzel making time didn't turn out quite like I expected, but I've learned to read the directions clearly next time!  We may even try again some day...