Pretzel Dogzzz

We made these last year, I think for Superbowl weekend (not that we care much for football, but we like the excuse for silly food in February).  This year I spotted cocktail wieners at the neighborhood butcher shop, and felt the urge to make them again.  However, my clever husband suggested we use up the ring bologna that had come with our bulk beef pack.  Now there's an idea!  Disclosure: neither of us grew up in WI, so we were not raised with ring balogna.  So their presence in our beef order was somewhat of a puzzle.  We've given some away, threw some in mac and cheese (not bad), and of course just snacked on a fair amount. 


And as a pretzel dog?  Great!

There are a bunch of recipes online, you can probably use almost any dough.  I went back to the Leader book for Bavarian Pretzels.  It's a basic, semi-stiff dough with a little bit of butter cut in at the start.  It makes a soft, glossy, and firm dough. I used about 25% local soft wheat flour, which gave them a nice color and added some flavor.


For these, I divided dough into just over 2 ounce portions, and cut up the bologna to approximate cocktail weiner size.  Let the dough rest a few minutes to relax, then roll into a long strand, and twist around your "dog".


Final process is to boil for 30 seconds or so in water (with baking soda added), sprinkle with coarse salt, and then bake for about a half hour at 350 degrees.

The other advantage of this particular recipe is that you pre-form the pretzels and retard them in the fridge overnight.  That breaks up the labor, and you can have the oven hot and water boiling, pull the pan out of the fridge, and have hot pretzels in a half-hour or so.  Great for a party! 

Now we might have to try bologna corn dogs....