Baking the Winter away

Spring is having a hard time getting through this cold, wet Winter. As a result from the extended time indoors, I baked... a lot.
If you don't have The New Best Recipe book by Cooks Illustrated, I highly recommend it. They have great recipes, but also explanations for why they do what they do. It's super informative and I learn a lot both from their magazine and this book (which is my new go-to for things I've never made).
My two biggest adventures in baking were soft pretzels and cinnamon buns. I have finally decided to stop being afraid of yeast doughs! That said, I actually opted for the non-yeast cinnamon bun, because the recipe takes 6+ hours and I just didn't have that kind of commitment in me. But the book had a solution! They specifically mention "go see this recipe" if you don't have that kind of time. It was in the quick-bread section. Technically, I would call these "cinnamon roll biscuits". Their texture was less flaky like a cinnamon bun and more dense and crumbly like a biscuit. I thought they were fantastic though- so long as you aren't expecting a yeast-dough cinnamon bun. They were certainly a super special addition to our weekend breakfast, and really not too hard to make!






Soft pretzels are a favorite among my husband and boys, so for a special treat, I decided to try them. And I have to say, don't fear the yeast people! It's really not that hard. Slightly scary in that, if you made the water too hot, or your yeast was too hold (ie dead) then you've just wasted that 2 hours waiting for your dough to rise, 'cause it ain't gonna! But other than that, it was fun and the boys had fun playing with the dough with me and rolling it out. We learned a valuable lesson too: pretzels need to be _much_ thinner with larger holes in the twists than you think! We made our way too fat and as you can see, when they bake, they puff up (duh you say... I know)! So ours were really more like buns than pretzels in the end, but they were tasty! The recipe comes with a great honey mustard dipping sauce option, which was very sweet and tangy. The boys ate them with just Kosher salt sprinkled on them before baking, and I made mine dipped in cinnamon sugar after brushing with butter. Any way you go, they were yummy! On the salt thing- I did not bother to go find "pretzel salt" which I personally don't like anyway. Kosher worked just fine for us.