Sweet Butter Pretzels

Dough:

1. Preheat the oven to 35 °. Crumble the yeast into the lukewarm milk, stir with it and dissolve. Sift the flour in a bowl and mix with the sugar, cardamom and salt. Add egg, softened butter and yeast milk and knead everything for 10 minutes. In the end, the dough should turn smoothly away from the bowl wall, but no longer stick. Otherwise, add a little more flour, but only gradually and in small amounts to better check the consistency. Then close the bowl and put it in the oven for 60 – 70 minutes. The dough volume should have doubled. If the specified time is not sufficient, extend it by approx. 20 minutes.
2. Place the risen dough on a floured work surface, knead it again with your hands for about 1 minute, then divide it into 2 equal portions and roll out each as rectangular as possible 15 x 30 cm. Brush one of the plates thickly with half of the soft butter for the filling and sprinkle just as generously with half of the vanilla sugar. Put the 2nd plate on top (the dough is very soft, but it will work) and roll everything out again slightly to the dimensions 18 x 32 cm and thus glue it together at the same time.
3. Cut the plate lengthways into 2 cm wide strips. Now twist each strip into a cord, i.e. twist it so long that it looks like a spiral. In doing so, the strand elongates a little, but that is intentional, because the pretzel is then formed from it, namely: You put the strand into a ring, lift the two ends, also twist them 2 – 3 times with you and then press it gently on the central curve (see photo no. 4 + 5). Line a tray and an underlay with baking paper or foil and place 4 pretzels on each. Cover both with a cloth and let the blanks rest for another 30 minutes.

Completion:

1. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 200 ° O / bottom heat. Bake the tray and pretzels one after the other on the prepared foil (will be nicer than with 2 trays and convection). The baking time on the 2nd rack from the bottom is 12-15 minutes. They should get a golden brown color. Brush the still hot pretzels thickly with the remaining butter, sprinkle with the remaining vanilla sugar and leave to cool.
2. They taste, however, slightly warm with jam or some cream cheese and – if you like sweet and tart – best with a little mild hard cheese. They can be frozen or just cold but baked well again. Then again spread a little with butter and sugar-coated …………… then they are like “new” ‘….. ;-)))