Mini-Soft Pretzel Disaster

Chaos ensued.  The apartment was filled with smoke, the smoke detector was going off, the timer was beeping and all I could do was laugh to myself that I must look like something out of an I Love Lucy episode.  And all I wanted to do was make some soft pretzels!

Everything started out swimmingly.  I was excited to make a soft pretzel recipe I had seen on MarthaStewart.com.  What a great summer BBQ snack! Then even more exciting was the idea that I could use my absolutely fantastic bread maker to make the dough.  The bread machine did its job like a pro and I had warm, gooey pretzel dough ready to go.  I rolled out each strand of dough and shaped it accordingly. The diagram/picture Martha gives you is very helpful.

Now this is where things started to go a bit downhill.  The instructions say to place the pretzels, after poaching them on parchment paper and I, robotically, did so.  I should have used my Silpat, a much better alternative to parchment/wax paper in general.  Halfway through the pretzels baking I noticed a lot of steam, not exactly smoke, coming up through the stove top.  I quickly turned on the ventilator but then realized the apartment had also filled with smoke.  I ran around quickly opening every window, turning on every fan. But it was too late and alas the fire alarm went off and I had to unplug the battery until the smoke screen subsided.  Finally, I took the pretzels out.  They were beautiful to behold...until I tried to remove them from the wax paper.  It had sealed itself onto the bottom of every pretzel!  So, the pretzels were tasty, pretty on top and bare naked on the bottom (I cut off the wax paper).

I decided I did not think the pretzels were acceptable for public consumption.  That said, I did make a delicious soft pretzel-avocado and mayo sandwich for lunch yesterday.  If you don't fail you don't learn (as much), so next time I plan on making some kick-ass soft pretzels that have their bottoms fully intact.