Sweet/Savory Soft Pretzel Bites
Remember when you were young and you passed the Auntie Annie’s pretzel kiosk at the mall (you know, back when people went to malls regularly), and you just HAD to have one of their GIANT cinnamon sugar pretzels?
Or when you got to junior high and the big, exciting draw was the a la carte section in the cafeteria with the soft pretzels cheese sauce? I swear, every time I had an extra dollar in my pocket, it went straight to those pretzels.
Don’t so much miss the cheese sauce, but man I do miss those pretzels. Nostalgia is powerful, everyone.
Pretzels are a true testament to science – they are tough on the outside, slightly chewy, but also airy, soft, and moist on the inside. In other words, they don’t make much sense.
But they are DELICIOUS.
Pretzels are SUPER fun to make homemade, and surprisingly easy – even when you have food allergies!
Traditional pretzels have yeast in their dough, but yeast often gets finicky when gluten free flour is used in a recipe (SO. MANY. CINNAMON. ROLL. EXPERIMENTS. GONE. WRONG.). So, for this recipe, I opted for a non-yeast recipe with minimal ingredients, because the less ingredients there are, the easier it is to is to tweak!
This recipe does call for Greek yogurt – for those that are dairy-free, Kite Hill makes an amazing Greek yogurt (used in this recipe). The taste and the texture are SPOT ON! It’s usually available at Whole Foods. If you make sweet pretzels, you can use plain or vanilla. For savory, I would go with plain (though I used vanilla in both of mine because they were out of plain, and they tasted fine!).
Gluten Free Quick Pretzel Bites
MAKES: around 50 bites
Ingredients:
2 1/4c Gluten Free Flour Blend
1t baking powder
2 individual containers Kite Hill Greek Yogurt
1/2c unsweetened almond milk
2c boiling water
2T baking soda
1/2c dairy-free butter, melted
cinnamon sugar or course salt, for topping
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Sift flour and baking powder into bowl. Add yogurt and milk, and stir until dough is formed (you can use an electric mixer for this to make it WAY easier, just use a dough hook).
Transfer dough onto flour-dusted work surface. Knead until dough comes together completely. Cut dough into 4-6 sections, and roll each section into a thick rope.
Cut dough into bites and place on baking sheet.
In pan on stove, combine water and baking soda and bring to boil. Using slotted spoon, dip dough bites into water and hold for 5 seconds. Return to baking sheet.
Place bites into oven and cook at 425 for 9-15 minutes (less for softer crusted pretzels, more for hard crust pretzels – I did about 15 minutes and they came out perfectly).
After removing pretzels from oven, brush with melted butter and top with cinnamon sugar or coarse salt.
