Pretzel Rolls

This my friends, is not your ordinary pretzel rolls recipe. In fact, I found this recipe to be EXTRAordinary. The pretzel roll dough is simple to put together and takes only 2 hours to mix the dough, let it rise, shape it, boil it, and, finally bake it to a shiny, rusty red perfection!

I’ve never used spelt dough but I assure you I’ll never choose another flour for pretzels of any design, be it rolls, big fat soft pretzels or, as I also did with this dough, a nice big loaf for sandwiches. I found the white spelt at Whole Foods. It’s a bit pricey at nearly 3 dollars a pound, but after using it, I find the cost worthwhile.

The recipe as written gave me 8 good size hamburger rolls or 10 nice dinner rolls or a perfect size sandwich loaf. (The loaf I made didn’t have the usual oven spring associated with wheat dough but, it was a great sandwich loaf, that I DEMOLISHED in short order!)

I love that whatever I tried to make with this dough, all things pretzel worked to perfection without altering a thing other than the shape. If you use the dough hook, very little kneading will be necessary. This simple delicious recipe has already been given quite a workout in my home and will most certainly be added to the rotation for the rest of our natural lives!

These pretzel roll gems were salty, chewy, and doughy in every way you’d expect a soft pretzel to be. They were easy to make, the dough was extremely easy to work with, and the timing in the recipe was spot on. Easy enough for a weeknight and a winner with the whole family.

These pretzel rolls are winners—soft on the inside, slightly chewy on the outside, yeasty, and salty. They taste exactly like soft pretzels, just in bun form.

My rolls were done after 16 minutes, as stated, but they weren’t quite as brown as the picture. Mine were also a little more mottled than those in the picture. I might try making larger rolls to have for sandwiches—these rolls were closer to slider size. Not sure how they would bake if they were bigger. Sounds like I need to do some experimenting.

We ate ours plain and with butter and we liked them both ways. I think they would be fabulous as a sandwich bun—soft but sturdy enough to stand up to just about any filling. My husband thought a BLT on a bun would be a little bit of heaven. We ate most of the batch, so any sandwiches will have to wait until I have time to make more. Maybe tomorrow.

Very tasty pretzel rolls that are good warm with butter or at room temperature with sandwiches—they will not disappoint! You get the familiar “pretzel whiff and chewiness” when you bite into one, and the interior texture has a perfect balance of softness and firmness.

This recipe makes easy-to-handle dough, making it friendly to novice bread bakers. I used unbleached all-purpose flour (Gold Medal brand). Once you get going, the dough becomes smooth and bouncy in no time. When you turn over the rolls in the baking soda water, using a slotted ladle and a wooden spoon makes gentle handling easier.

I typically hand-knead bread dough for about 10 minutes, but this one “felt good” (held its tight round shape, was very smooth, and bounced right back after poking with a finger) after 5 minutes. I put the shaped dough back in the oven the second rise (what I usually do). It increased only slightly in volume after 20 minutes. My pretzel rolls didn’t look as uniformly brown as shown in the photo but they looked as expected—no mistake that they were pretzel rolls!

These pretzel rolls came together quickly, the measurements in the recipe were accurate, and the dough was very pliable. The dough wasn’t sticky. Rise times indicated in the recipe were accurate. My oven time was 30 minutes to produce a golden crust.