The Ultimate Game Day Snack
It’s that time of year where there always seems to be a reason to host (and I’m not mad about it). When it comes to hosting, things tend to be a little stressful but they don’t need to be! Having appetizer options that don’t take all day to prep is a must.
This pretzel recipe may seem complicated from the outside, however, since the dough only requires one rise (less than an hour) and the pretzel bites take less than 10 minutes to bake in the oven, you can really have this snack ready in no time.
Short on Time?
If you’re short on time and you want to have this appetizer ready as quickly as possible, you can always buy pre-made dips at the grocery store as opposed to making them from scratch. Though I always prefer a homemade recipe, it’s never a bad thing to take a few shortcuts when needed!
Dough Details
Personally, I am a visual learner and sometimes it can be difficult to follow a recipe when the only instructions that are available are written. If you’re like me and you want to see exactly how to prep the dough for these pretzel bites, I have included a step-by-step photo guide below:
Water Bath
Like most pretzel recipes, these pretzel bites do require a quick water bath before baking. For this step, all you have to do is add warm water to a large mixing bowl along with baking soda. Give the water a good mix until all of the baking soda has dissolved (if your water isn’t warm, the baking soda won’t dissolve too well).
Before placing your pretzel bites in the oven, quickly dunk each one into the water bath, strain any excess water from the dough pieces, and then place the dough pieces onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. You will probably have a little water drip onto the baking sheet which is totally fine! Just make sure the water it isn’t pooled onto the baking sheet.
This water bath will allow the pretzel bites to bake properly as this is what gives them that perfectly chewy crust as well as their deeper color and shine!
Homemade Cheese Dip
When making the cheese dip, please use freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese as opposed to the pre-shredded cheese from the grocery store. The pre-shredded bags of cheese have a coating of cellulose powder to ensure that the shreds of cheese do not clump together. If you use pre-shredded cheese for this recipe as well as any other cheese dips, macaroni and cheese, etc., that powder coating will mix into the other ingredients and you will be left with a clumpy grainy mess.
Copycat Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Bites
Ingredients
Method
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, warm the milk and water for about 45 seconds.
- Add the granulated sugar and instant yeast to the warm milk/water. Give it a quick mix and set that aside for ~5-8 minutes or until the yeast blooms (you will know that it's ready when it's bubbling and foaming on top!)
- In the bowl of your stand mixer (or just a large mixing bowl), combine all of the other dough ingredients using a whisk (bread flour, dark brown sugar, salt, baking powder, and partially melted butter).
- Place the dough hook on your stand mixer (or continue mixing by hand). Add the bloomed yeast to the dry ingredients and begin mixing the dough on low speed until a dough ball begins to form.
- Sprinkle bread flour on a clean and dry counter and then place the dough ball on top of the counter.
- Continue kneading the dough by hand for about 3 minutes until it's just slightly sticky and soft.
- Form the dough in a tight ball and place it in a well-oiled bowl.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a warm kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise for 45 minutes – 1 hour or until it has doubled in size. This rising time will greatly depend on the temperature of the room (a warmer room will allow the dough to rise faster!)
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 400℉.
- After the first rise, place the dough back onto a lightly floured counter and gently roll it out using a rolling pin.
- Cut the dough into 6 equal strips and then roll each strip out to about 22" long.
- Cut 1" pieces from those dough strips.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine the warm water and baking soda for the water bath.
- Dunk all of the dough pieces into the water bath for just a few seconds before taking them out, straining the excess water, and placing them on your baking sheet.
- Bake at 400℉ on the center rack for 8-9 minutes until the tops are just slightly golden and the bottoms are a deeper brown. As always, the baking time will vary depending on your oven so keep an eye on them as they bake!
- Allow the pretzel bites to cool off before tossing in butter, salt, and/or cinnamon sugar.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, melt 5 tbsp of butter (you can use more or less depending on your personal preference)
- If you would like to make both the salted pretzels as well as the cinnamon sugar pretzels, divide the pretzel bites in half between two separate mixing bowls.
- Add the melted butter to the pretzel bites and then add the coarse salt or cinnamon sugar mixture (this is just granulated sugar mixed with ground cinnamon to taste).
- Toss the pretzels to incorporate the melted butter and toppings. This ensures that each pretzel bite is properly coated with all of the yummy goodness!
- **If you would like all of your pretzel bites to be salted, I would recommend making 1 batch of the cheese dip as listed in the ingredients. If you are like me and would like to split the pretzel bites between salted and cinnamon sugar, I would recommend only making a 1/2 batch of the cheese dip as it does make a lot!
- In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter.
- Whisk in the all-purpose flour and continue whisking it until it's well incorporated and you don't have any flour lumps (Please do not burn the flour! Keep mixing it the entire time! This should take about 1 minute)
- Next, slowly pour the milk into the saucepan as you gently whisk. Do not stop whisking as you don't want that flour to settle to the bottom and burn.
- Once the milk mixture thickens, take the saucepan off the heat.
- Add in the freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese as well as all of the seasonings.
- Begin to gently fold in the cheese and allow the residual heat from the milk mixture to melt the cheese.
- Continue mixing until you have a smooth consistency and be sure to serve the cheese sauce while it's warm (you can re-heat it if you need to!)
- **If you would like all of your pretzel bites to be cinnamon sugar, I would recommend making 1 batch of the frosting dip as listed in the ingredients. If you would like to split the pretzel bites between salted and cinnamon sugar, I would recommend only making a 1/2 batch of the frosting dip as it does make a lot!
- In a small bowl, combine all of the cream cheese frosting ingredients and mix very well using a rubber spatula until smooth.
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