Mini Pretzel Dogs
I think I’d like to write a book about how to make friends, entitled How to Make Friends, the almost fairytale.
Chapter One
Once upon a time there was a lonely girl who had but one friend… her snaggle-toothed mother. One day, in the kitchen, she stumbled upon a rare and delicious combination. A combination never before discovered in the land of Lonleyia. Warm, soft, salty dough met with… hot dogs.
It was as though rainbows, unicorns, and friendly hobbits had descended upon this special girl. People came from far and wide to sample her new found delicacy and friendships blossomed abound. It was like Springtime. Springtime of friendships.
Even the girl’s snaggle-toothed mother made a friend or two.
Never again was the lonely girl lonely (or hungry)…
The end.
Yea… my next book only has one chapter, one recipe, and about 34 words. No biggie.
So! You have two options here. You can re-read this story and go take a nap OR (and I totally suggest this next option) you could make these pretzel dogs this weekend, serve them with spicy mustard and cold beer, and make (or solidify) friendships of your own.
Choose your own adventure. No bigs.
Essentially, we’re wrapping soft dough around hot dogs. It’s nothing more complicated than that.
If that doesn’t sound like the best thing to happen all week, I invite you to come back in two days from now.
Ps. I love you.
Don’t be fooled by the twisty and golden brown nature of pretzels… they’re actually really simple to make.
It all starts with yeast, warm water, and flour.
At first the dough is shaggy shaggy.
With a little work of the dough hook, it will come together!
This is the luscious dough before rising.
It should feel light and soft. This will be a tender dough. It will be slightly sticky, but not sticky enough to actually stick to your hands.
It’s like a little dough pillow.
If your first instinct is to rest your head on the dough… you’re on the right track.
This is real life.
It’s juuust dough. Back off, kitten!
Beautifully risen dough.
It’s like magic in a bowl.
My trick?
I leave dough to rise in an OFF gas oven, or on the back burner of my stovetop with the oven left on at 200 degrees F.
Cut the soft dough into 16 pieces (for 1/2 hot dogs) or 8 pieces (for big ol’ whole hot dogs).
So light and tender.
But don’t eat it yet!
Rolling the dough into ropes.
Channel your Play-Doh days.
Ropes get rolled 12-inches long for half dogs, and 24-inches for whole dogs. It’s science… or not at all.
If this seems like SO MUCH FUN to you… I consider us friends.
Just make sure that the ends are sealed and pressed together.
The next step is boiling!
If the dogs aren’t sealed up tight they might unravel a bit… which is totally not the end of the world, ps.
Pretzels are boiled in a baking soda and water solution.
The baking soda changes the alkalinity of the outside of the pretzel. Baking soda is what gives pretzels their distinctive chewy crunch and golden color.
Baking soda is what separates these pretzel dogs from bagel dogs… and these are most certainly NOT bagel dogs.
Although… if you’re interested in bagel pizza… I was too.
Serve these pretzel dogs to many. You’ll need to share. Don’t be like me and eat too many. While you’re in the kitchen making awesome, you might also consider these Fried Pickles!
These pretzel dogs are so warn, tender, and utterly delicious. I promise that these darlings will find you friends, lovers, and stalkers of the feline variety.
ps. Leave Me Alone, Kitten!
Pretzel Dogs
makes 16 pretzel dogs (made from cutting hot dogs in half)
recipe adapted from Alton Brown
1 ½ cups warm water (between 110 and 115 degrees F)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 ¼ teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast
22 ounces all-purpose flour (about 4 1/2 cups)
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
about 14 cups of water
1 cup baking soda
1 large egg, beaten, with a splash of water
salt and pepper for topping
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine warm water and sugar. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and set aside for 5 minutes. The mixture will begin to foam and froth. If it doesn’t, throw the mixture away and start again with new yeast.
Once the yeast and water is frothy, add the flour, salt, and melted butter. Using the dough hook, mix on low speed until well combined. Increase the speed to medium and knead the dough until it is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, creating a ball of dough around the dough hook. Beat on medium speed for approximately 4 minutes.
Remove the dough from the bowl. The dough will be soft, pliable, and just a bit sticky. That’s perfect. Scrape any residue out of the bowl and coat the bowl with a bit of vegetable oil. Place the dough back in the bowl, sprinkle with flour, cover with plastic wrap, and store in a warm place to rise. Allow dough to rise, until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Place baking racks in the center and upper third of the oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and lightly brush the paper with oil. It’s important to brush the parchment paper or the pretzels will stick!
Combine water and baking soda in a large pan (8 quart is fine) saucepan and bring to a boil.
While the water comes to a boil, turn the dough out onto a clean, slightly oiled work surface. Divide dough into 8 or 16 pieces, depending on how large you’d like your pretzel dogs. 8 pieces of dough for whole hot dogs. 16 pieces of dough if you’re doing to slice the hot dogs in half.
Start with the fingers of both hands in the center of the dough, and roll, moving your hands outward as you roll. Roll the dough along the oiled surface until you have about a 24-inch or 12-inch piece of rope (depending on how large your piece of dough was… the more dough the longer the rope).
Wrap pretzel around a hot dog, making sure to seal the ends.
When water has come to a boil, gently lower a few pretzel dogs into the boiling water. Boil for 30 seconds. Remove carefully, using a flat, slotted spatula. Place on prepared baking sheet. Brush boiled pretzels with beaten egg, and add coarse sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper.
Bake until deeply golden brown, about 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for a few minutes before serving warm.
Soft pretzels are best enjoyed the day they are made.
If you’re not going to enjoy all your pretzel dogs, double wrap them in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. When ready to serve, transfer out of plastic and into a piece of foil. Wrap well and bake in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes, or until heated through.
220 Comments Add A Comment
Wow! made these for the superbowl last night after finding them on Pinterest! They cam out PERFECT. thank you so much for the great instructions and photos . . .
These came together beautifully, and they were so much fun to make! Perfect Super Bowl food — and something to look forward to for lunch today. My German food-obsessed husband immediately started fantasizing about the different types of brats we could pretzel-ify, with flavored doughs to match. I think we have a lot of pretzel dogs in our future.
Wow. Made these last night for my 2-person superbowl couch-fest. As my boyfriend was taking his first bites, this is what it was like:
“mmmm” [closes eyes] “MMMM YES!” [nodding, eyes still closed]. Perfect, may have made up for his team losing.
Just delicious, and really fun to make! Thanks for the idea, it’s awesome.
Made these yesterday for our Super Bowl party and they were delicious! I served them with a spicy cheese sauce and they were a huge hit- thanks! I’ll never buy soft pretzels again! My pretzel dogs didn’t turn out as dark brown as yours – do you think this a function of the length of time in the water/soda, or the length of time in the oven/heat? Or possibly my egg wash? I used a whole egg with maybe a scant tsp of water. Thanks again!
This looks delicious!
PS I love your cat creepily staring at the camera dead on in the last picture! haha!
Can’t wait to get home to make this with my kids!! Looks so yummy & fun!
Made these yesterday for a Superbowl shindig. So much fun! This is probably me being inept, but I had some trouble wrapping the dough around the dog. The dough just didn’t seem to seal together as nicely as yours did, Joy. But still delicious, and maybe next time around I’ll be better at assembling them!
I can’t seem to find my previous comment to “reply” to but the earth balance in lieu of egg wash worked wonderful (+ replacing hot dogs with veggie dogs obviously) for my vegan pretzel dogs. They were probably one of the best things I’ve ever make. And I ate five of them.
thank you!
I intended to serve these for Super Bowl, but we wound up having them last night for dinner. Delish! FYI, I made the pretzel dough on Saturday, punched down the dough after it rose, kept it in the fridge in a ziploc, and made the dogs fresh yesterday. Worked like a charm.
have enjoye dmany of the ideas and recipes yo have shared…made these last week and they came out really terrific, the family loved them as did I – many thanks!
Oh my goodness these look good!
I also made these for a Super Bowl party – came out exactly as pictured and tasted great. This recipe goes into my file.
Thanks, Joy!
These were AWESOME and so easy to make. Joy you rock!
There’s always been evidence that you are spectacular and that your food is spectacular. Now I also see your cat is spectacular.
These look fantabulous! But what if I don’t have a dough hook? I need to make these! xo
they sell this at asian bakeries!
Is it possible to make these without a stand mixer/dough hook?
Thank you SO much for this recipe! I can hardly wait to try these in my own kitchen.
Oh, and by the way, I got such a huge kick out of kitty making a few surprise appearances. Such a fun touch!
these perfect little dogs were absolute hit on my party the other night.. i even made few vegetarian ones, using some sort of soybean hot dogs.. soooo easy and delicious recipe, i might make it again today..
Made these last weekend and can I just – DIVINE! Hands down the best pretzel dough I’ve ever had. Will be making the dough again to try out some soft pretzels! YUM! Thanks Joy!!
I made these for a viewing of Kindergarten Cop on Friday, they were delicious AND theme-appropriate! I squeezed out 18 mini dogs by using leftover scraps of dough from the first 16; the leftover dough dogs didn’t hold together in the boil, but they tasted exactly the same and I scarfed them before anyone was the wiser =) Eight people demolished ALL of them, so I’d say this recipe is a winner! Thank you, Joy! I blogged about it here: http://blog.quickbrownfoxbakery.com/2012/02/recipe-mini-soft-pretzel-dogs.html
these are so cute – the pretzel reminds me of the amazing little pretzels at bouley bakery in new york!
SO SO GOOD!!!
I love these
I love pretzel dogs so much! My husband and I have been making them for the last year or so, and we also use Alton Brown’s recipe. We put jalapeno jack cheese in ours–it makes them gooey and slightly spicy.
Also, I love the peeping kitty! We have one who looks a lot like that.
Oh man… These look so amazingly delicious…AHH!
I have a quick question for you Joy!
Are there any particular sauces that go well with these?
Thanks!
Joy, loved, loved, this recipe. I will be mentioning it today on my little blog at http://www.allsortsofgoodstuff.blogspot.com and providing a link back to your site. Thanks for always sharing such great recipes.
I didn’t have enough hotdogs to make a whole bunch of these, so I used the rest of the dough to make normal pretzels. :( Unfortunately, those taste really funky. I think it’s the baking soda? The ones with the hotdogs are delicious, though.
Made these for dinner and they were supper yummy!
So hi! I made these Friday and they were bonkers delicious. As my roommates said they tasted like:
1. Childhood, 2. The Cape, 3. Summer time, and 4. Happiness. You’re amazing – thanks for inspiring me with your wonderful food and your wonderful self every gosh darn day.
Hi, so I heard we are friends now, will you share some? =D
What would happen if I made these with bread flour instead of all purpose?
the dough would have more gluten content and be a bit tougher. probably not the end of the world.