Food and Prop Styling by Shiri Feldman
Food Prep and Styling by Chef Suzie Gornish
Photography by Felicia Perretti

Whoever first came up with the idea of pairing caramel with sea salt has my complete and absolute admiration! So naturally, stuffing a salt-encrusted soft pretzel with the sweet and tantalizing flavor of caramel wasn’t that hard to contemplate. These heavenly twists are a cinch to prepare and disappeared the minute my grandkids got their cute and chubby fingers all over them. Need I say more?

YIELDS 12 SOFT PRETZELS

• 2 lb (910 g) store-bought or homemade pizza dough
• 1 16-oz (450-g) container oven-proof caramel filling
• 1 Tbsp baking soda
• 1 cup warm water
• coarse sea salt, for sprinkling
• 1 3-oz (85-g) bar milk chocolate

Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Prepare two parchment-lined baking sheets and set aside.

Place a sheet of parchment paper onto your work surface for each pound of pizza dough. Lightly flour the parchment and roll each pound of dough into an 18x12-inch (46x30-cm) rectangle. Slice each rectangle, lengthwise, into six 2-inch (5-cm) wide strips.

Place the caramel filling into a pastry bag with a wide tip. Pipe a ¹⁄₂-inch (1-cm) wide strip of caramel filling down the center of each dough strip. Bring the edges together and pinch gently to seal the dough. If the dough doesn’t stick well, wet the edges and try again. Using the palms of your hands, roll each strip gently to create uniform strands.

On a floured surface, shape a filled piece of dough into the letter U. Lift the two ends and twist them around each other twice. Fold the twisted section of pretzel over until the ends meet the bottom of the U. Attach the ends to the curve of the pretzel, at the points where 5 and 7 would be on a clock. Repeat with the remaining dough to form 12 pretzel twists.

Place 6 pretzels onto each of the prepared baking pans, spaced evenly. Add 1 Tbsp of baking soda to a cup of very warm water and mix well until dissolved. Brush the mixture onto the pretzels and sprinkle lightly with sea salt.

Bake pretzels for 12–15 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature.

Once pretzels have cooled, break the milk chocolate bar into pieces and place them into a ziplock bag. Submerge the bag in hot water for about 3–4 minutes until the chocolate has melted. Snip a tiny hole at one end of the bag and drizzle the chocolate over the pretzel twists. Place pans into the freezer for 3–4 minutes until the chocolate has hardened.

(Originally featured in Family Table, Issue 847)