Pretzels, my love

A few years ago, I discovered my love for all forms of soft pretzel bread. Pretzel bread is now sharing the #1 spot with focaccia bread as my bread favorites. OMG...this is just occurring to me as I write this - is there a pretzel focaccia mash up I should be creating??

Here are soft pretzel bread sticks I made for Thanksgiving once - I dipped them in a homemade aioli and a cheese fondue.

These beauties are spinach artichoke filled pretzel buns - YUM!

One more photo showing the fondue with my pretzel sticks.

The main things to consider when making pretzel bread is using bread flour, giving it time to rise and what gives it the classic dark brown crust and chewy texture is boiling them in baking soda before you bake them.