Soft pretzel turtles
I really love turtles. I'm always collecting turtle things. Two weeks ago when I was making soft pretzels, I thought about whether I could make turtle shaped ones. So I did some experimenting.
At first, I was just going to make one big lump for the shell, and some small pieces stuck to the big circle to form the head, feet, and tail. Then I thought to make the shell more fancy looking by making it into a spiral shape. I wanted to use black sesame seeds for the eyes, but I didn't have any on me. I searched for something black and eventually found some black sesame paste.
You can probably use almost anything for the eyes. Maybe some chocolate. Some of the turtles came out better than others. It was hard to keep the feet and head pieces attached to the shell. When I dipped some of the turtles in the baking soda water, sometimes the small pieces fell off, and then I had to reattach them.
The small pieces also cooked much faster. So some of the feet and head parts look slightly too dark around the edges. Overall, I thought these came out pretty cute and I'll probably try it some other time and try to perfect it.
Soft Pretzels (adapted from Little Corner of Mine)
Yields: 12 small sized pretzels
Ingredients
2 tsp. active dry yeast
pinch of sugar
2/3 cup + 1 Tbsp. warm water
2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. oil
3 Tbsp. baking soda
1 cup hot water
Directions
1. Dissolve yeast into water with a pinch of sugar, let stand 10
minutes, until the mixture is creamy colored. Mix the yeast mixture with
flour, sugar, salt and canola oil, and knead until combined (about 5
minutes).
2. Transfer the dough in a greased
bowl, cover with cling wrap and let it rest until double in size. Time
needed depends on the temperature in your kitchen. We let our dough
rise about an hour and a half.
3. When the dough has doubled in
size, divide into 12 balls. Take one ball and roll it into a long
strand. Set aside. Repeat with the rest of the dough. After all 12 long
strands are rolled out, take the first one and stretch it out again and
twist it into a pretzel shape and place on the parchment paper. Repeat
and finish the rest. If you want to make turtle shapes, take one strand, and take off a small part of the strand, enough to make the tail, legs and head. With the rest of the strand, roll into a spiral shape. Then connect the head, tail and leg pieces. Use something dark to stick on the face piece for the eyes like black sesame seeds or chocolate chips.
4. Mix baking soda with hot water (close to boiling). Dip each pretzel into the mixture
and place it back on the parchment paper. You can then sprinkle the pretzels with sea
salt or cinnamon (for sweet pretzels).
5. Bake for 8 minutes at 425 F or until golden brown.
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Michelle — August 20, 2010 @ 5:38 pm
Absolutely adorable. What a clever idea!
meaghan (chic cookies) — August 21, 2010 @ 4:56 am
adorable! I posted a link on my column (ediblecrafts.craftgossip.com). Thanks for sharing!
gg — August 21, 2010 @ 8:59 am
I, too, collect turtle ‘things’…I have over 6,000 in my vast collection!! People call me ‘Turtlelady’…I can’t wait to make these turtles…they look so yummy!!
Kirbie — August 21, 2010 @ 9:20 pm
Thanks!
Kirbie — August 21, 2010 @ 9:20 pm
Thanks for linking to me!
Kirbie — August 21, 2010 @ 9:20 pm
Wow, that is a huge collection! Mine seems very small in comparison now…
Ruth Hill — August 24, 2010 @ 11:09 am
This is so cute. I have just added you to my yahoo rss feed. This looks like a fantastic blog!
Kirbie — August 25, 2010 @ 9:48 am
I’m happy you enjoy my blog!
Rebecca — September 1, 2010 @ 7:48 am
Um, I’ve never made pretzels before, but I’d love to try. How long and at what temperature do you cook them?
Kirbie — September 1, 2010 @ 9:16 am
Sorry about that. I don’t know what happened, but somehow two of the steps got cut out from this post. The full recipe is in the print recipe options, but somehow got messed up in the actual post. It should be fixed now, but you bake for about 8 minutes at 425 F. You also need to dip them in baking soda water mixture prior, which was also left out somehow. The recipe should be correct now.
Paula — September 23, 2011 @ 2:07 am
Oh!!! They are really cute!!!!
This weekend I’m going to make some pretzels, and even if I have some recipes, I would want to see if you had someone (I see you have more than one!!!). When I’ve tried one of your recipes, it has been always great, so I wanted to compare!!
I have seen this turtles, and I like them!! They are so cute and funny!!!! I love them!!!
Kirbie replied: — September 25th, 2011 @ 9:35 am
I used a recipe from Alton Brown that I love. For my variations I usually adapt one of his recipes.