How To Make Your Own Auntie Anne's Pretzel At Home Slideshow

Remember that secret we talked about? Like we said, we guessed sugar, which is why we added confectioners' sugar to our dough. 

Along with the confectioners' sugar, we added the essential ingredients for baking a pretzel. To give our pretzels that moist, fluffy dough, we used a little bit of cake flour because of its glutinous qualities, milk to give the dough a silky texture, and butter for richness in flavor. We also had baking soda in our ingredients, but this was left out of the dough and used later. 

After kneading the dough together for about eight to 10 minutes, we let it rise at room temperature for at least one hour, or until it doubled in size. 

Another everlasting quality of the Auntie Anne's pretzel is its thin, crunchy loops. To get the same circumference, we rolled our pretzel dough really, really thin, about the width of our fingers. 

Pretzels look like pretty elaborate specimens, but it all starts with a U. Thanks to Auntie Anne's detailed (and passionate) instructions, we saw that twisting a pretzel together is as easy as tying a shoe. Twist, cross, and fold under. 

This is where we use the baking soda. After dissolving it in lukewarm water, we dipped each of our pretzels in the mixture before laying them out onto an oiled baking sheet. Why, you ask? Because it's what gives an Auntie Anne's pretzel that distinct, irreplaceable crust.

The finishing touch to an Auntie Anne's pretzel is the crunchy sea salt. Feel free to omit this part, because so many of us do, and you'll lose 2 grams of fat and about 500 milligrams of sodium.

Another obvious component of the Auntie Anne's pretzel is its shiny, silk coat from the butter. Auxer told us that as the Auntie Anne's pretzel became more and more popular, so did their signature "sweet butter," which was specifically developed for their pretzel. To keep it simple, we added just a pinch more of confectioners' sugar to the butter to sweeten it up. 

After a few tries (read: how thin to roll the dough), we finally felt like we perfected the Auntie Anne's recipe. There was something different about enjoying them at home on our couch instead of a busy and bustling mall, but we didn't hate it. 

Click here to see the recipe.