Recipes / What To Serve

Easy Cinnamon Sugar Soft Pretzels!

January 7, 2020

Easy Cinnamon Sugar Soft Pretzels

This recipe for super easy and fast cinnamon sugar soft pretzels is perfect for any home baker, beginner to advanced. I love this simple recipe so much because it’s quick to put together and I always seem to have all the ingredients in my pantry already. It’s also the tastiest of sugar-cinnamon dough treats! My kiddo loves these so much, he asks for them all the time and he loves to help me make them. If you’ve never made homemade pretzels before, I’ve added some of my favorite notes in this post to get you baking pretzels like a pro! So if you have an hour and these 8 common ingredients on hand, let’s get started!

Dough Ingredients:
1.5 Cups Warm Milk
1 Packet (2 1/4 tsp) Dry Yeast
1 tbsp Brown Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Melted Butter
3.5 Cups All-Purpose Flour

Cinnamon Sugar Topping Ingredients:
4 tbsp Melted Butter
1 Cup Sugar
1 tbsp Cinnamon

Step 1 Mix the Ingredients

In a stand mixer bowl or large mixing bowl, add 1.5 cups warm milk and sprinkle with 1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant dry yeast. Give that a quick whisk and let it sit for just a few minutes (up to 10 minutes) to make sure it’s active. It’ll look slightly puffed if the yeast is active. The more you bake with instant yeast, the easier this first step will be. If your milk was too hot, it can kill the yeast. Yeast likes a nice warm environment to grow.

When you are sure your yeast is active, whisk in 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tbsp melted butter. Add 3.5 cups all-purpose flour one cup at a time with your dough hook attachment (or a wooden spoon) and mix together until you get a shaggy dough.

Step 2 Knead the Dough

Flour your surface with flour and knead the dough for 3 minutes. Work the dough with the palms of your hands pushing toward your surface alternating to the left and right. It will get sticky as you knead it. So keep adding a sprinkle of flour to the top to keep it from sticking to your hands. At the end of 3 minutes, the dough will feel like it loosened up and became soft and workable.

Step 3 Let the Dough Rest

I like to use as little bowls as possible for easy cleanup. A lot of bakers will tell you to grease a new bowl but if you just lightly flour your current working bowl (yes even if it’s caked in leftover dough pieces), plop your dough right back in there and it’ll be fine. This is not a long rise, so it won’t get super large and sticky on the sides. Cover it with a tea towel and let rise at room temperature for 10 minutes.

It should look slightly puffed, like this:

Step 4 Divide the Dough, Roll, & Shape!

Divide into 8 equal pieces using a dough knife or any knife that you have on hand. I LOVE my dough knife and highly recommend grabbing one. I use it to scrape sticky flour off my counter for quick clean up too!

If you want perfectly shaped pretzels that are all the same size, use a ruler! I roll mine out to 24 inches.

A simple twist and pinch to connect the pretzel shape…

Step 5 BAKE!

Preheat the oven to 400F and prepare the pretzels on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Let the pretzels sit out uncovered at room temperature to rise a little more while the oven is heating. Bake for 18 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. If you’ve made soft pretzels before, note that the color won’t change to a traditional darker pretzel color because we skipped the salt bath step.

Step 6 Cinnamon Sugar Coating

While the pretzels are baking, mix the sugar and cinnamon on a plate and set aside. Melt 4 tbsp butter in a small bowl in the microwave.
Move your pretzels to a drying rack and place the parchment paper underneath to catch excess butter and cinnamon-sugar. Brush a generous layer of melted butter to all sides of one pretzel, roll and coat the pretzel with the cinnamon-sugar mixture, and repeat for all 8 pretzels.

AND ENJOY!

Serve fresh and warm, yum!!
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:3]