Homemade Pretzels

I had a lot fun making these. Trust me it is not as hard as it looks to make. Making pretzels is very similar to making bagels, in the sense that these are cooked twice. Once in boiling water and again in a very hot oven. The only downside of these pretzels, which was purely my fault is that I forgot to add the salt in with the flour. As soon as I bit into the pretzel I could taste that it wasn't in the dough. There is salt on the top of the pretzel so it sort of balanced it out. Next time I'll make sure I add the salt.

You will need
1 tsp dry active yeast
2 tablespoon plus 1/3 cup honey
1 cup milk plus 2 tablespoons
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
course salt(optional, enough to salt the tops of your pretzels)

1) Heat the milk to 110 degrees.
2) In a bowl, add the 2 tbs of honey, milk and yeast. Let sit for 20 minutes of until yeast starts to foam.
3)In a separate bowl add the 2 1/2 cups flour and the salt. Add the yeast mixture to the flour and stir to combine. The dough will be sticky, roll out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 10 minutes. Add more flour if the dough is to sticky. The amount of flour you will need to add will variety depending on the humidity and altitude of where you are.
4) Put the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a cloth. Let rise for an hour

5) Knead the dough for 5 minutes and cut into pieces. I cut mine into 5 then cut is piece in half. This way I ended up with smaller sized pretzels.
6) Roll the dough into logs. Place on a baking sheet and let rise for a further 5 minutes.

7) Shape the dough into pretzels. Take the ends of the log and fold them to the center of the dough, the ends should cross each other in the center. Pinch the ends to the bottom piece of dough, this is very important. If you don't do this your pretzels may open when boiled.

8) Heat a pot with water, add the 1/3 cup of honey and stir. Allow the honey to be incorporated in the water.
9) Place one pretzel at a time into the pot, do not crowd the pot. Cook for 1 minute then flip and cook for another minute.

10) Take the cooked pretzels out of the pot and place on a baking sheet. I used my stoneware pans, I find they bake bread nicer then a regular metal pan.
11) Lightly spread some of the 2 tbs of milk on top of the pretzels. Sprinkle the salt on top and place in a pre heated 450 degree oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Enjoy!!

Tips
1) I didn't have course salt, so I use regular table salt. If you don't have course salt do the same.
2) You can make pretzels balls as well, I did. I made 6 regular pretzels and 4 pretzel balls.
3) Don't roll the logs to thin, they may break when resting.