Oktoberfest

Who would have thought that Oktoberfest starts in September? Certainly not me. When I realized that tomorrow is the last day, and that it actually is October now, I thought it apropos to check the next thing off my cooking bucket list: homemade soft pretzels.

I started searching for recipes on the food network site and chose two recipes with five stars to decide from: Almost-Famous Soft Pretzels or Alton Brown's Homemade Soft Pretzels. 

Ultimately, I chose the latter due to the higher number of reviews and the lower butter content. Additionally, I used Blue Bonnet Vegetable Oil Spread instead of butter which I do often with recipes when trying to eat healthier. It doesn't seem to have a negative impact on taste whatsoever.

I start out by preparing the dough and separating it into 8 sections. The Sur La Table stainless steel dough scraper definitely came in handy for this step. Once the dough was rolled out, shaping the pretzels was somewhat of a challenge, being a perfectionist and all. I decided to pair the pretzels with a cheddar-hard apple cider sauce which I thought appropriate for both Oktoberfest and the time of year. Mangia! or should I say essen! 

       

The pretzels came out doughy on the inside and crisp on the outside. Delicious! However, they don't beat the buttery pretzels and their aroma from the mall. If that's what I wanted, maybe I should have tried the recipe with more butter. Oh the struggle of trying to eat healthier.