Sometimes you have the best of intentions. You intend to make healthy vegetable based meals, but instead you just want something that has no nutritional value, feels like summer, and will make your taste buds sing. And sometimes, your husband is really happy and excited when you make said unhealthy meal that you just can’t help yourself. So you do it, you make pretzel dogs and eat that instead of the huge amounts of produce that just got delivered from Waitrose. Oops. 

This is a wonderful weekend treat though. The work to make this isn’t all that difficult but it is time consuming, which means it’s not a weeknight dinner. Although, it does make a pretty indulgent and happiness inducing workplace lunch.

The first time I made pretzel dogs was for lunch on my 30th birthday. The end product was delicious but making them was extraordinarily frustrating. I could not get the dough to come together. It stayed sticky until I added almost a cup more flour than listed in the recipe. And once it was dough, it was hard to handle and roll it out to wrap the hot dogs.

But, since pretzel dogs taste so good Ryan and I wanted to make them again. We’ve been missing baseball a lot this summer, and pretzel dogs remind us of the ballpark. I love getting a pretzel dog, with some cheese dipping sauce, and sitting out in the sun, sweating and cheering on the Nats.

For this recipe, I combined what I’ve done before with soft pretzels with some general research, and a recipe from Buns in My Oven. Her recipes uses Auntie Anne’s pretzels from any mall in America as her inspiration. Both those mall pretzels and ball park food are junk foods that you know lack nutritional value, but you just have to have them. Seriously, I just gotta eat pretzels when I smell ’em. They are staples for those places and it’s not a proper outing to the mall, or the ballpark, without a pretzel. This time to ensure successful dough I mixed everything by hand instead of with the stand mixer. Kitchen gadgets are my favorite, but sometimes doing it manually is a safer bet. You’re just unlikely to overwork dough when you do it by hand. Your (ok, my) arms are going to give out before the dough does. And I think that was part of the problem in my first attempt. I used the dough hook attachment in my mixer and I think it overworked the gluten in the flour, which ultimately made everything tough and dense.

This time I used a wooden spoon to bring together the liquid and dry ingredients together. Once they formed a messy dough that could be handled I kneaded it for 4 minutes until it came together as a smooth ball. It’s pretty easy. I think when you’re a dough/bread novice (like me) it’s best to start out using your hands to get a feel of what well done dough looks and feels like. Unsure how to knead? Check out the step by step photo tutorial on Wikihow.

This dough makes enough to cover 10 hot dogs. Originally though I only cut 8 pieces of dough because I didn’t realize how many dogs were in my pack. Oops. This recipe works for 10, but then the pretzel layer is a bit thin. I think 6-8 hot dogs is the sweet spot for this recipe. That way you have a thick enough layer of pretzel so you can really enjoy its flavors, but not so much that you lose the hot dog and feel like you’re just eating bread.

I know the pretzel dogs might sound like a crazy recipe you might never actually make, but I encourage you to think about trying it out. It’s delicious and I think it would please any member of your family – especially children. It’s fun and it’s a different way to eat a classic summertime barbecue food. Also did I mention?  It’s delicious!

Finally, if you can go to a baseball game this summer, please have a pretzel dog for me.

Messy level: I badly want to say this is an easy mess free recipe, but it’s really not. You need to make the dough, then roll it on the counter, then boil the dogs quickly, then bake them. It’s a lot of steps. None of them difficult, but it requires a lot of dishes. And also, drops of baking soda water leave white marks on dark surfaces so you definitely have to wipe down the stove afterwards.

Pretzel Dogs

 

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Prep time

90 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

1 hour 45 mins

 

Serves: 8-10 pretzel dogs

Ingredients

• ¾ cup warm beer, or water (about 110°F/43°C)
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1½ teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2¼ cups flour
• 1 tablespoon/14g butter, melted
• Vegetable oil
• 10 cups water
• ⅔ cup baking soda
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• Coarse salt for topping
• 6-10 hot dogs

Instructions

1. To heat the beer or water microwave it in 15 second bursts. Use a thermometer if you have one to check its temperature. Otherwise, if it feels warm to your finger but not scalding hot, then it's probably fine.
2. Once the beer is warm stir in the sugar and yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes. In this time the yeast will get foamy and smell like bread.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the salt and flour. Create a well in the center of the flour mixture.
4. Pour the beer mixture and the melted butter into the well of the flour mixture. Using a wooden spoon (or a dough hook on low) mix together the liquid and flour mixtures. Mix until you have a shaggy ball.
5. Knead the dough for 4-5 minutes or until it forms a smooth ball. I recommend doing this by hand, but you can use the mixer.
6. Lightly oil a medium bowl with vegetable oil. Put the prepared dough in the bowl and roll it around a bit so it's lightly coated in oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for 1 hour or until it's doubled in size.
7. Towards the end of that 1 hour, preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C.
8. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and grease the parchment.
9. In a large pot combine the water and baking soda. Bring to a boil.
10. Now that the dough is ready, divide it into the same number of pieces as the number of hot dogs you have.
11. Using a rolling pin or your hand flatten the dough so it's about ¼"-1/2" in thickness. Put the hot dog in the middle and wrap the dough around it. Depending on what look you prefer you can cover the hot dog entirely or let the ends stick out. Pinch the edges of the dough together to form a seal so that the dough won't unravel.
12. Once all the hot dogs are covered, in batches of 3-4, drop the hot dogs into the boiling water. Let them boil for 30 seconds them remove with a slotted spoon.
13. Place the pretzel dogs on the prepared baking sheet. Leave at least 1" in between the pretzel dogs.
14. In a small bowl beat together the egg and 1 tablespoon of water.
15. Brush the egg over the tops of the pretzel dogs. Sprinkle each dog with some coarse salt.
16. Bake for 15 minutes, or until nicely browned all over.
17. Let cool just slightly.
18. Serve with ketchup, mustard, or cheese sauce and a beer.

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