Eastside Food Bites, The Curvy Carrot, What’s Gaby Cooking, Smells Like Home, Mel’s Kitchen Cafe, all of these blogs are conspiring against me to fill me with salty carbs. The easy to follow and execute recipes and the beautiful photography totally worked on me. I made these first for a few of my girlfriends who came up to the woods for an afternoon of acting like kids and swimming in the lake by our house. They were amazing, and we polished them off on one sitting. Then I made them a few months later when one of our aunts and uncles came to visit, and then again when more dear friends came out. Ugh. I can’t help but spread them around!! I must be stopped!!!

THESE, these Ham and Cheese Pretzel Bites are the next level of this little baking adventure and I can’t wait to try them!

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
6 tablespoons melted butter
2 1/2 salt
4 1/2 cups flour
vegetable oil
3 quarts water
3/4 cup baking soda
1 whole egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water

I did this a little backwards. I mixed the flour, salt, sugar and yeast and then added the water and the butter. Mix it with the dough hook on your mixer until it forms a ball of dough. Oil up the bowl and let it sit by the oven to rise, preheat your oven to 425F and watch your dough rise. Well, I’m sure you have better things to do than sit there and watch it, but when you come back, it’ll be bigger!
Divide the dough into a few smaller balls and roll into long strips.
Slice the rolls of dough into bit size pieces. Boil the water and add the baking soda. Plunk a few dough pieces in the boiling water at a time, then move them to a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Brush each one with the egg and water mixture, sprinkle with salt and bake for about 15 minutes.
Caution: Only make these for a group – or when you have starving children around. DO NOT make these and assume you’ll have ‘just a few‘. Famous last words, my friends. They are way too addicting.