Soft Pretzel Bites with Beer Cheese
Here in the US, today is basically a major holiday…. the Super Bowl!!
Now, if you know me personally, you know that I do not care about sports. At all. I do not find them fun or interesting to watch or play. BUT the Super Bowl is nostalgic for me, because growing up my family loved football. Though I did not love football, I did always love snacks.
As an adult, the Super Bowl has become “Day of Snacks with Maybe Some Football in the Background” and I am ok with that! I am not a big fan of leaving my house in the evening when I have to work the next day, so while Super Bowl parties aren’t my thing (LAME, I know), making enough snacks for 10 people when there’s only 2 of us is definitely my thing.
Hence, this recipe. Beer cheese and pretzels is honestly such an amazing combination. Its salty, buttery, cheesy, beer-y… what could be better! This is super fun, pretty simple and totally delicious to make.
For the pretzels, you make a dough, let it rest, cut up the dough, dip each piece in a baking soda bath, top with salt and then bake until pretzel-like.
The dip is even simpler. You take beer, you add cheese, cornstarch and some spices and… voila. Beer cheese.
So, without further ado, here is the perfect recipe for your Snack Bowl… errr I mean, Super Bowl.
Soft Pretzel Bites with Beer Cheese
Ingredients:
- 1 packet active dry yeast
- 1 cup milk heated to 100 degrees
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 1/2 tbsp butter room temperature
- 1 cup water
- 2 tbsp baking soda
- 4 tbsp butter for brushing
- pretzel or flaky salt to taste
- 1 bottle corona or other mexican beer
- 16 oz block of cheddar cheese
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- paprika to taste
- salt to taste
- cayenne pepper to taste
Instructions:
- Heat milk to about 100 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, add warm milk, sugar and active dry yeast. Allow to sit 10 minutes.
- Add salt, 2 1/2 tbsp butter and half the amount of flour to the mixture. Mix until everything is combined and then add the other half of the flour, mixing with your hands until a shaggy dough forms.
- Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead until dough becomes combined. A bit of texture on the dough is fine, as long as everything is throughly combined. Do not add too much extra flour, this dough should be slightly tacky.
- Allow to rest in an oiled bowl covered with a damp cloth for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- While dough is rising, make your baking soda bath. To a large bowl add 1 cup of nearly boiling water and 2 tbsp baking soda. Mix with whisk until the mixture is clear. It is ok if this mixture cools!
- Punch down dough, turn out and chop into 6 even pieces.
- Roll out dough into logs about 18 inches thick. Chop the logs into bite size pieces.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees farenheit.
- A few pretzel bites at a time, dunk each bite into the baking soda mixture. Coat both sides and allow to sit about 10 seconds.
- Pull out of mixture, and lay on a parchment lined baking sheet, sprinkling with salt right away. Continue this process with each pretzel.
- Put baking sheet in the oven. Allow pretzels to cook 8-13 minutes, depending on your oven. Look for traditional pretzel color and hard crust before taking out of the oven.
- Melt 4 tbsp butter. Brush each pretzel with melted butter and let rest on a wire rack on top of a baking tray.
- Chop up block of cheese into small bite size pieces.
- Coat cheese cubes with corn starch. Set to the side.
- In a cast iron skillet or other large pan, add one 12oz bottle of beer.
- Slowly add in cubes of cheese until all cheese is disolved.
- Add salt, paprika and cayenne powder. Mix and serve!
