Soft Pretzels with Cinnamon Butter - Sweet & Salty Goodness!

We had our grandsons over the other day and decided to do a bit of baking with them.  There's some strawberry desserts you'll see soon, too, but one thing at a time.  Today, I'd like to share the soft pretzels we made.  I chose these to do with them because little dudes and rolling dough just go together.

The project was fun and came out delicious!  Take a peek:

 
Soft Pretzels with Cinnamon Butter

Ingredients:

5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar

4 teaspoons dry yeast 

2 cups warm water

spray oil

sea salt or kosher salt

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

2 tbsp sugar & cinnamon (we have a mix for toast I keep on hand)

Directions:

1. Add yeast, sugar and warm water to bowl.  Mix to let them start doing their magic.
2. Pour in salt and flour. Mix till well combined. Knead for about 5 minutes, till dough smooth. I used the dough hook on my mixer.
3. Turn out into a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for a half hour.
4. Once it's risen, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees and sent to work creating the pretzels.  Divide the dough into 12 pieces for large pretzels, more pieces for smaller ones.  Set the pieces on a greased surface.  Now it's time for the fun!  Roll each piece into long "snake" (according to my grandsons).  Twist the "snake" into a pretzel shape and place on a greased cookie sheet.  Spray with oil (I used coconut oil) and sprinkle with salt.
5. Set in your 500 oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, till golden brown.
6. For the cinnamon butter, stir the butter and sugar/cinnamon mix together till nice and creamy.
7. Once the pretzels are done, you can slather this on or dip it, like I did - sweet and salty goodness!

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Here's scenes from our baking adventure:

What would you dip yours in?  Mustard, butter, something sweet?  Do tell!

Have fun in the kitchen!
Carrie