Through an opportunity at BlogFriendlyPR, I was able to review the Auntie Anne’s Home Baking Kit. You have no idea how much I’ve been craving Auntie Anne’s pretzels! Sadly, our local mall started losing stores like crazy and, eventually, Auntie Anne left, too. I think it’s probably been over a year now. I’m not sure. I couldn’t wait to try out this kit, though!
Now, I’ve tried making pretzels on my own with a recipe I found on the Internet. Those tasted… well… strange, to put it nicely. The Auntie Anne’s Home Baking Kit comes with everything you need. You’ve even got the choice between salted pretzels or cinnamon/sugar pretzels. I ended up doing 6 salted pretzels and 4 cinnamon/sugar pretzels. It’s just the way they got divided on the baking sheets.
Full instructions are included. If you need to download them for some reason, though, you can do so here. I’m not going to go into complete detail for the instructions, but I’ll walk you through the process.
First, you’ll need to get the yeast going. For fans of Alton Brown, that means it’s time to wake up the burping sock puppets. All they need is some little warm water and some time to perk up. You’ll start to see a froth on the top when they’re ready. If you don’t, your yeast is dead and your water was probably too hot or too cold.
Next, you’ll need to mix that in with big bag of dough mix. You can use a rubber spatula, but I prefer getting my hands dirty. You might as well. You’re going to get them dirty eventually anyway. Besides, hand-mixing seems to do a more thorough job.
Turn that out onto a floured surface, knead, form it into a ball and let it rest for 30 minutes in a warm spot. Make sure to cover it with plastic wrap. The instructions said to use non-stick spray, but we don’t use that stuff. Turned out fine anyway.
Your blob of dough should have risen and gotten larger in size. This is due to the yeast snacking on the sugars in the dough and producing gas (hence Alton Brown’s burping sock puppets). Divide this out into 10 even portions.
Roll each piece out into a long rope (like the worms you would make out of Play-Doh in Kindergarten. Make sure you make it even. It’s best to start out with a fat log and roll from the middle of the log out with long strokes. This will help keep the diameter of the finished rope even.
Fold
Don’t worry, there are better folding diagrams in the instructions.
Once you have all of them folded, you’ll need to dunk them in a baking soda/water solution and then let them drain. You can coat the baking sheet with non-stick spray, but I really don’t like the stuff. I just used parchment. After you get them on the baking sheet, you’ll need to decide if you wanted them salted or cinnamon/sugar.
Here are my pretzels after they came out of the oven:
Salted Cinnamon/Sugar
The whole process was really easy and turned out much better than the pretzels I made on my own. As soon as I got them out of the oven, they were quickly inhaled by my husband , and I got a few. I saved one of the cinnamon/sugar ones for breakfast the next day. That was a nice treat.
If you want to make something other than pretzels, the kit also mentions how to make pretzel dogs or pizza with the mix. Or, you can check out Auntie Anne’s recipe page.
Rating:
5/5 Although nothing beats a fresh Auntie Anne’s pretzel from the mall, the ones I made with the baking kit turned out nicely. They don’t taste exactly like the ones I’d get from the mall, but they’re still really good. I’m very happy with the Auntie Anne’s Home Baking Kit and will probably be getting more of them when I get the chance. The only thing hubby had to add is that he wishes the sour cream and onion powder would have been included, too. Otherwise, the instructions are easy to follow and the results are yummy!
FTC Statement: I received the Auntie Anne’s Home Baking Kit for free through BlogFriendlyPR. No compensation has been received for this review. This has not affected the opinions within the review and complies with FTC standards.
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