Pretzel Challah Rolls

Last May, Rowan Fae performed at a Spring Fairy Magic Market in Tacoma. After our performance, we walked around the market for a little bit, checking out the vendors. One of the vendors was a bakery called Forest Fairy Bakery. I ended up buying a cookie and a loaf of challah bread, the latter of which I stuck in the freezer and snacked on occasionally over the summer. I'd never had it before but I'd pinned a few challah bread recipes so when I saw it at the market, I thought "Why not?" Since I ended up liking it, I decided to make some challah rolls the next time I needed to make dinner rolls.

Because I hadn't had pretzel rolls in a while, I decided to add that extra step (it's pretty easy really - just give the rolls a baking soda bath). So I started searching through my bread pins. One of the pins was instructions from PopSugar, a lifestyle and pop culture website. It even included a link to a recipe for  challah bread on the YumSugar, PS's food section - until the link mysteriously became broken a few days after I saved the instructions. Couldn't even find the recipe by searching the website. So I quickly went through my pins until I found an easy challah bread recipe from Life as a Strawberry.

Pretzel Challah Rolls (rolls: source; bread: source)

Ingredients

• 5 tsp. active dry yeast
  
• 1 ¾ cup warm water
• ⅔ cup sugar
• ½ cup olive oil, plus extra to grease a bowl
• 5 eggs
• 1-2 Tbsp. salt, depending on your taste
• 8 to 8-½ cups flour, plus extra for kneading/dusting
• To turn the bread into pretzel rolls: ½ cup baking soda in large pot of boiling water (see note)

Directions

1. In a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let sit for 5 minutes or until yeast begins to foam.
2. Mix oil, sugar, and salt into yeast.
3. Add eggs, one at a time.
4. Add 8 cups of flour in 1-cup increments, mixing the dough a bit between each flour addition. (If you're using a stand mixer, use the dough hook attachment here. If you're working without a mixer, stir in as much flour as you can with a wooden spoon and then knead the rest in by hand).
5. When you've added 8 cups of flour, take a look at your dough. It should be slightly sticky but should still hold together and pull away from the sides of your bowl as you mix. If the dough is too wet, add more flour in ¼-cup increments until dough reaches the right consistency.
6. If you're working with a stand mixer, add an additional 1 Tbsp. of flour to the mixer and continue to knead the dough with your dough hook attachment until the dough is smooth and holds together. If you're working without a mixer, turn the dough out of the bowl onto a floured surface and knead it by hand until it reaches a smooth consistency.
7. Oil a large bowl and place your dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel and let it rise in a warm place for 1-½ hours or until it has doubled in size.
8. When dough has doubled, punch it down and turn it over in your bowl. At this point, you can either let it rise again on the counter or let it rise slowly in the fridge overnight. If you're in a hurry, though, re-cover the dough and let it rise again for 45 minutes on the counter. If you have the time to wait, re-cover the dough and place it in the fridge for 7-8 hours or overnight. After the dough has risen in the fridge, take it out and allow it to come back to room temperature before you proceed with the next step (about 3-4 hours) (I didn't have time to do this but just a couple hours seemed to work).
9. Preheat oven to 375℉
10. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, punch it down slightly, and cut it into equal pieces (per the PopSugar instructions, 32 pieces makes burger bun-sized rolls so I doubled that since I wanted smaller rolls).
11. Take each piece of challah, and carefully hand roll it out on a flat surface until it takes on a long, thin snake shape. Try to keep each piece even in length and width.
12. Take two rolled-out pieces of dough, and crisscross them. Twist one side of the strands, and pinch the ends. Twist and pinch the other side.
13. Take one end of the twisted dough, and roll it up like a snail. Take the exposed end, and tuck it underneath the center of the bun. Make sure the end is securely tucked or else the bun will unravel while cooking.
14. Fill a large pot about halfway with water and add baking soda. Bring to a boil. Add rolls two at a time, making sure they get fully covered by water. Keep them in the pot no longer than 30 seconds. Remove using a spider strainer or slotted spoon. Shake off excess liquid and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat.
15. Bake until the dough is golden, between 20 and 30 minutes. Allow the challah to cool slightly before moving to cooling rack.

Even if a recipe calls for it, I think ½ cup of baking soda to turn bread into pretzels is too much. The bread tastes a bit salty. Either ¼ cup or ⅓ cup should work.