Quick Cinnamon Pretzels

One evening I thought to myself.. I want some pretzels. I've never made them before, but I want them NOW. And what is a girl to do, but rummage through her baking cupboard for the ingredients and just get cracking! There are no complex ingredients here, all of the bits needed are readily available to buy in any grocery shop, and I keep all of them on hand in my kitchen.

Aside from being no-nonsense from an ingredients point of view, it's also quick as anything, because it doesn't require any rising time for the yeast. You just mix, kneed, shape, blanch, bake and dip. It literally took less than an hour to have a tray full of cooling pretezels ready to be demolised.

And that's important when you have a craving to satisfy. We've all been there. Don't pretend.

Makes a dozen

Ingredients

• 375ml lukewarm water
• 7g instant yeast
• 3 tbsp caster sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 560g plain flour
• 2 heaped tbsp. bicarbonate of soda
•  

To finish

• 3 tbsp butter, melted
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Place the water in a bowl and stir through the yeast until mostly melted in. Stir in the salt and sugar.

Now, add the flour, ¼ of it at a time. You might not need quite all of it, or you might need slightly more.

When a firm dough has been formed, kneed in the bowl for a few minutes until elastic and pliable, and turn out onto a floured surface. I use my trusty pink tray.

Cut into 12 pieces, roughly equal.

Roll each piece out with your hands into long sausages. Mine were about 30-40cm long.

Fold over into a pretzel shape.

Form a 'u' shape, and cross over the edges

Cross over once more, so you have two twists. Flatten the edges, and wet with some water

Tuck those flattened ends in under the bottom of the pretzel

Now, heat some water in a small pot with the bicarbonate of soda.

When bubbling, place the pretzel in with a slotted spatula. Allow to boil for 20-30 seconds then remove with the slotted spatula, allowing as much water as you can to drain off.

Place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and repeat with the next 2-3 pretzels. When you’ve filled the tray (they don’t really spread much in the oven), bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes.

Uniformity is not my strong suit..

Melt the butter in one bowl and combine the cinnamon and caster sugar in another. As soon as they come out of the oven, brush with the melted butter and dip into the cinnamon sugar.

Allow to cool on a rack, and dig in when they’re just cooled down enough to eat.