Another Frankenstein food.
I love a good buttery soft pretzel, as it just seems to be the perfect partner to soak up beer. My favorite pretzel is actually Dexter’s (the most beautiful family-friendly dive bar) famous Old World Pretzel. It’s a handcrafted pretzel that comes in two sizes, 7 or 17 ounces, and with your choice of delicious dipping sauces (but you really gotta go with the beer cheese). It’s perfect.
Anyway, I’ve had my fair share of bar pretzels. That one is the best. But I recently saw another brewery near Madison, Octopi, recently renovated and now offer pretzels of their own. Is it weird I keep track of the city’s pretzel offerings? Probably, but what inspired this recipe was that Octopi started offering a pizza pretzel. I haven’t had it yet. But I figured I would take a stab at making my own.
What we have here is pizza dough stuffed with mozzarella, twisted up like a pretzel, brushed in a small bath of baking soda and boiling water, then topped with a few seasonings, extra cheese and pepperoni. And of course, it’s dipped in some marinara. It’s the marriage of two delicious foods to create something truly special – a pizza pretzel.
Time You Need
- ~20 Prep
- ~20 cooking
- Yields: Three pizza pretzels
What You Need
- For the pizza pretzel:
- 1 can of premade pizza dough
- ~4 cups of finely shredded mozzarella or Italian blend cheese
- 20 slices pepperoni
- ~1 tsp garlic salt
- ~1 tsp garlic powder
- ~1 tsp Italian seasoning
- Olive Oil
- Marinara sauce of choice (for dipping)
- For the water bath:
- 1/2 cup baking soda
- 6 cups of water
What You Do
- Preheat oven to 430.
- Line a baking sheet with foil and grease.
- In a large pot, add water and baking soda and bring to a boil.
- While waiting for water to boil, start working on the pretzels.
- On a floured surface, unroll premade pizza dough. It should roll out as one big rectangle. Cut that into three equal strips horizontally.
- Stretch each strip out so that it’s about 3 inches wide. The add 1 cup of the shredded cheese down the center. Season with a few dashes of garlic salt, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning. Fold the dough over and seal to create a cheese-stuffed log.
- Repeat steps for the next two logs.
- Take the logs and form a pretzel. To do so, create a circle and bring the ends of the logs to the top of the circle. Twist the ends around each other once, then pull them down to meet the bottom of the circle. Repeat for the other two logs (if you are a visual learner, watch this video).
- Place the pretzels on greased baking sheet. Then generously brush with boiling baking soda water. This is what will help give it the pretzel-y taste. Coat as much of the dough as possible.
- Then top the pretzels with olive oil, any extra desired seasonings, a sprinkling of the last cup of shredded cheese, and finish with sliced pepperonis.
- Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until golden brown
- Serve with marinara for dipping sauce!