Soft Pretzels

Oh, Martha. You've done it. You have created a recipe for hot buttery pretzels that I adore.
I think I gained ten pounds.
I am a sucker for soft pretzels. Every time I go to the mall I always go by the pretzel place and get one. Or if I'm at the movies and they aren't outrageously expensive. I get one. See the pattern? Well, considering I had all the necessary ingredients, these bad boys were easy and cheap to make. So easy to make that I might sneak one into the movies next time I go... (Shhh! Don't tell anyone!)

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons regular instant yeast
1 cup of warm water
Pretzel salt, or regular salt if you don't have any
3 tablespoons butter, melted
Cooking spray

Directions:

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Once thoroughly combined, add enough water to make all the dry ingredients moist. It should look like this. 

Once you have everything incorporated, lightly flour a clean work surface and  your hands (dough will be sticky) and knead the dough for about five minutes. 

After kneading, your dough should look like this. Don't worry if you have to re-flour your surface, it's normal. Make the dough into a ball and lightly coat with flour.

In a medium size zipper bag, place the dough. Make sure it has enough room to expand. Let it sit for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes or so your dough should double (or close to it) in size. The easiest way to get the dough out of the bag is to rip apart the sides.

With cooking spray, prepare work surface. I used a large cutting board instead of my counter. In a regular sized bowl pour warm water (tap water microwaved for 30 seconds).  Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray it with cooking spray. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

Divide your dough into eight parts. I never get mine equal and that  is perfectly fine. 

Once divided, roll dough portions to rope about two feet long.

Form your dough ropes into the pretzel shape.

Once your dough is formed to a pretzel, dunk it in your warm water just long enough to get it thoroughly wet.

Place wet pretzels onto prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt (or cinnamon sugar!) and let sit for 10 minutes before baking.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Once they are out of the oven, brush butter over the warm pretzels. Continue brushing on butter till it is all gone.  At this point you can add more salt or toppings if you wish! (I added more salt!)
If you are wanting to bake cheese onto your pretzels add it onto the pretzels when they have about two more minutes of baking.