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.

Caramel-Filled Pretzel Bites

When it comes to non-staple ingredients in my pantry, I try to not have extras sitting around for a while (with the exception of coconut - since only Mom and Nonni like it, I just leave the bag alone). So a while back I started looking for a recipe to use up the caramel squares I still had from previous recipes. I eventually decided on Caramel-Filled Pretzel Bites from Amy's Healthy Baking. Which sat saved on my bookmarks bar for 6 months or so as I tried to figure out when to make them.

Enter St. Patrick's Day. While trying to decide what snacks I wanted to make for spending half the day in the car, I had a lightbulb moment: why not make the pretzel bites? So I did.

Easy Homemade Pretzel Croissants

This year for Thanksgiving my mom had me make a couple appetizers. One was the pepperoni pinwheels (it's become my specialty. Plus Nonni loves them so I don't mind making them). The other was up to me but Mom suggested something cheesy. So I started looking for a baked brie recipe since I love brie cheese and figured I'd be able to finish the rest at home (which wasn't much - it ended up being a bigger hit than I had expected). A baked brie recipe tends to include a sheet of puff pastry, which only come in pairs at the grocery store. However, I already had an idea for how to use the other one: when I finished my dinner rolls, I could make the pretzel croissants recipe I'd found on Pinterest. It consists of both a yeast dough (which I've become really good at making and am possibly an expert at) and a sheet of puff pastry and comes from the blog Plated Cravings.

Homemade Pretzel Bites

Last year, after an almost 8-year absence, I finally returned to Irish dance. Coincidentally, it was with the same school that I had been with for my first 7 years; it was just under a different director/teacher as my former teacher/the school's founder had somewhat retired from Irish dance (Amber, the new director/teacher, knows Anne through homeschooling so that's how that happened). The day I returned was St. Patrick's Day, a Thursday, with 3 performances.

Apparently, this was a relaxing day compared to their usual (a lot had changed since I left, apparently; I only remember doing a recital when we went through Kent Parks & Rec). This year was more the norm: a weekend full of performances.

To prepare for a day of driving around from performance to performance, I decided to make some snacks for the road (this was also because I didn't know if/when we would eat lunch nor when we would eat dinner). Because of my continuous pretzel kick, I decided on pretzel bites. I even searched for a spider strainer to easily remove the bites from their boiling water bath as I knew the wooden slotted spoon I had wouldn't be effective (finally found one at Bed Bath & Beyond).

Pretzel Rolls

I've been on a bit of a pretzel kick over the last, I don't know, 8 years maybe. I think it all started when I was working the 2nd of my two food service jobs (the concessions stand at a water park in Renton): one of many snacks served was soft pretzels so I would occasionally get one for a snack (or lunch). Been hooked ever since. Every time I'm at the mall or a baseball game, I often have to pull myself away from the stands that sell soft pretzels. Not sure what it is - a different taste maybe? Currently one of my snacks is a serving of SnackFactory's Pretzel Crisps. And back when I lived with my parents and joined my mom on her Costco runs, I would occasionally grab a bag of pretzel rolls instead of regular rolls to go with my Easy Mac. I have yet to find them at the regular grocery store.

Which brings me to these (somewhat flat) lovelies. When I ran out of the King's Hawaiian Rolls, I decided to try and make my own pretzel rolls. So I scoured my Pretzels board on Pinterest (yup, the love is that major) and finally decided on Pretzel Rolls from Tasty Kitchen.