madeinbrazil replied to your post: For dinner, the kids wanted me to make Hot Soft Pretzels.

Recipe plz!

Here ya go. This made about 13 (baker’s dozen). My own recipe.

1.5 cups (12 oz.) hot water
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoons (1 pkg.) active dry yeast
1/4 cup butter
4 to 4.5 cups unbleached flour
(I used 4 cups flour mix of 1/4 whole wheat to 3/4 unbleached)
Other ingredients:
Olive or other oil
egg yolk beaten with a little water, or some butter
coarse Kosher salt
water with baking soda

Mix first 6 ingredients until you have a dough that is not sticky (add a little more flour if it is) but not too stiff. Grease dough all over (a drizzle of cooking or olive oil) and let rise in a warm place 45 minutes. Punch dough down to collapse large air bubbles.

In a 2-qt. saucepan bring to boil about 7 cups of water and 1/4 cup baking soda. Spray a baking sheet with Baker’s Joy or Pam. Pinch off bits of dough about the size of a tennis ball. Working on a very lightly floured countertop, roll dough between your palms and the countertop, outward from the center, until you have a rope about 12” long. Grasp the ends of the rope, bring the dough upward into a U shape, then cross it and stick the ends down on the curve of the U (classic pretzel shape) .

Preheat oven to 400 F. Put each pretzel shape into boiling baking-soda water for about 30 seconds.

Remove with a slotted spoon or flat spatula. Place on baking sheet. Let rest about a minute, then sprinkle with coarse Kosher salt. Not too much, because kosher salt is very salty.

Brush pretzels lightly with an egg yolk beaten with a little water, or some melted butter (these promote browning). Bake for 10-15 minutes. Enjoy!

It’s a 6”, 1-layer dark chocolate. I’m going to mail it tomorrow.

The secret is to put a little meringue powder in the frosting. That way it skins over so it doesn’t stick to the plastic wrap. Then plastic wrap 2 directions, firmly, and packed in a box with some soft padding around. Knitted gifts work great, LoL

naimhe:

Because I took them out of the oven, the baking process stopped and they will eternally be chocolate mush. Then she laughed at my lack of baking chemistry knowledge. My mom, not mysevenkids. Mysevenkids doesn’t know me quite well enough to humiliate me with my lack of chemistry.

Waste of potentially good brownies. Dammit.

Does my heart good to know that even though I’m a tattooed misery, today I was good for somethin’. ;o)

[ps We make terrifically good brownies around here. Ask Wolf or twitchyspastic

Yes I know it’s after 11PM.

But you should smell how delicious it is in my house.

I know you’re jealous.

I do it all in the 3.5 hours it takes the turkey to roast.  I make the side dishes and put them in the oven the last half hour with the turkey.  While they’re baking I make the pies.  When we take the turkey and side dishes out, I put the rolls in to warm (turkey is supposed to sit a minute before it’s carved, anyway).  While the rolls are warming, I make gravy.  When the rolls come out, the pies go in and bake while we eat.  Efficient, I am.

HOWEVER.

Tonight I don’t feel like doing any of it.  I’m sad.  I have a couple friends who are hurting, that I can’t help, except to see what time brings.  There are things I want that I don’t dare hope for, some for them, some for me. I want to go lie in my room and knit, cry a little, go to sleep early.

But true to form, I think I’ll go make Oreo truffles.

• Cake baked
• Frosting made
• Cake & frosting assembled
• Shower taken
• Boots found
• Dressed
• Wrap cake 

Leave early enough to be early for work? Nah.

Did a tattoo this morning, flames up Bill’s arm to sort of match the other arm that I did on Friday.  I scheduled him 3 hours and was done in 2.

My 2PM didn’t show.  I don’t have anyone else booked for today, and can’t take walk-ins yet unless with Miss Autumne’s permission, and she’s out sick.

So it’s rainy-day go home and knit, make cookies, make a Christmas stocking, and be happy with my kids.

:o)

Walmart wasn’t really crowded but it looked like it had been the scene of a battle.

I’m going to stay in tomorrow

Going to bake pies (apple, pumpkin)

and another tray of Baklava

and probably a Chocolate Decadence, which is the richest dark chocolate cake you’ve ever eaten, that you haven’t yet.

(BTW that link is to the pictorial recipe on my other blog. It’s not hard to make but everybody will think you’re a gourmet pastry chef)

And FIVE pounds of potato salad, which will barely take us through Christmas day and the next day.

But tonight, I’m gonna sip some Sailor Jerry’s and finish this lil’ bit of knitting.

~This rum mixes well with anything, even root beer, and I don’t usually even like root beer.

~I never got all the way better from my cold last week.  I’m still coughing & congested.  Not enough to be really sick but enough not to be well.

~At 92 proof, it might not take long for me to care whether I feel well or not.

~All my Christmas stuff is done. Even stockings.

~That rum was a nice gift from a person I just met.

~It’s Universal Shark Week.  I know women who work or live together align from pheromones.  But half the women I follow here and every IRL woman I know.  It’s Metaphysical Misogynistic Bullshit.  Like “Oh people are too worried about Christmas.  I’ll give them something else to think about.”

~Most of my friends have disappeared for the night, to holiday parties or family fights.

~I recently had someone tell me that (after all these years), I don’t know how to kiss properly, or maybe it’s that my lips are so thin.  Maybe it’s because I haven’t been kissed enough.  Have to think about that one a minute. (Anyway it kinda hurt my feelings)

~My drink is almost gone.  Think I might have another.

~Baklava is in the oven.  Still have a Chocolate Decadence to make.  This should be fun.

My house smells so strongly of chocolate that it’s almost a shame.

I still have one load of laundry to fold and to sweep the bathroom floor.

It’s my own ennui that’s kept me up tonight, not deadlines.

But it’s already Christmas, and that’s fine with me.