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
Ingredients
- 2 tsp active dry yeast
- pinch 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
Instructions
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- Bake for 8 minutes at 425°F or until golden brown.
Notes
Nutrition
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
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!!!
I used a recipe from Alton Brown that I love. For my variations I usually adapt one of his recipes.
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.
Um, I’ve never made pretzels before, but I’d love to try. How long and at what temperature do you cook them?
I’m happy you enjoy my blog!
This is so cute. I have just added you to my yahoo rss feed. This looks like a fantastic blog!
Wow, that is a huge collection! Mine seems very small in comparison now…
Thanks for linking to me!
Thanks!
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!! 🙂
adorable! I posted a link on my column (ediblecrafts.craftgossip.com). Thanks for sharing!
Absolutely adorable. What a clever idea!