These are a soft pretzel. I love them with the sugar & cinnamon mixture. Mine usually come out looking like knots instead of pretzels, but everyone at the breakfast where I served them, loved them anyway.
Auntie Anne's Pretzels
1+1/2 cups warm water
1+1/8 tsp. active dry yeast (I use instant yeast and mix it with the flour thus eliminating the proofing step)
2 Tbs. brown sugar
1+1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup bread flour
3 cups AP flour (I generally use all bread flour)
2 cyos warn water
2 Tbs. baking soda (I someitimes use brown sugar instead)
coarse salt, seeds, or sugar & cinnamon
4 Tbs. butter, melted or garlic butter
Sprinkle yeast in warm water in mixing bowl; stir to dissolve. Add sugar, salt and stir to dissolve. (I put the salt in with the flour.) Add the flour and knead dough until smooth and elastic. Cover and let rise at least 1/2 hour. While dough is rising, prepare a baking soda bath. Be sure to stir this often.
After dough has risen, divide dough into 12 sections; cover. Roll each into a rope about 1/2 inch thick. Shape and place aside. (I put each pretzel on a square of parchment paper and covered them with sprayed plastic wrap. The paper helped to keep them from deflatting when I moved them to the bath.) Preheat oven to 450 cegrees F.
Water bath should be boiling by then; lower heat to simmer. Put each pretzel into the bath. Let parchment float away. Remove pretzel to baking sheet. Let rist again. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from oven and brush with melted butter and sprinkle with desired topping, such as coarse salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, ...
For Auntie Annie's famous cinnamon sugar pretzels put melted butter in a shallow bowl and cinnamon-sugar mixture in another bowl (mixture ratio = 1/2 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1 tsp. ground cinnamon). Brush the pretzel with the butter, coating both sides generously then dip into the cinnamon & sugar mixture.
Pretzels may also be finished by coating with a glaze and sprinkled with slivered almonds. Another alternative would be to brush with garlic butter.