Chocolate Chip Cookie Stuffed Soft Pretzels

During football season, I like to get really serious with my desserts. That way, if my team wins, I can indulge in celebration. And if they lose, I can indulge in sorrow. And given football season is quickly approaching, I thought I'd share what is arguably the best dessert I have ever made.

Half Baked Harvest is one of my favorite food blogs and I adapted her recipe for 'Chocolate Chip Cookie Stuffed Soft Pretzels' to accomodate my gluten allergy - it totally worked and the pretzels are out of this world. Pretzels are Jay's favorite food so he wasn't originally a fan of making them gluten-free, but even he couldn't tell the difference.

These are AMAZING. Fattening... but so worth an extra 15... or 30... or 45 minutes of cardio the next day.

Sharing the love with you all....

Ingredients for Pretzel Portion:

- 1.5 cups warm water

- 1 stick unsalted butter (melted)

- 2 tbsp light brown sugar

- 1 package active dry yeast

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1.5 tsp sea salt + more if you like salt (like we do) + extra for topping at the end

- 5 cups of gluten free flour (Pamela's Artisan Flour Brand is my favorite and seems to crumble less)

- 1 egg

Ingredients for Cookie Portion:

Disclaimer: if you don't want to do a lot of work, you can use store bought cookie dough in these pretzels. If you want them to be lifechanging, you can make your own chocolate chip cookies. My favorite recipe is by Debbie LeDonne (who is a cooking making YouTube sensation if you haven't heard of her). See below. Sequel is coming soon.

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 1/2 cup granulated sugar

- 2 eggs, beaten

- A generous spoonful of vanilla (Madagascar vanilla if you want to get real serious)

- 1 cup of butter (half melted enough so mixable)

- 2 cups GF flour (but I have to admit they taste better with real flour)

- 1 tsp baking soda

- Chocolate CHUNKS (are so much better than chips) but use whatever you want

Great. Let's do this.

Make the cookie dough first. Mix together the brown sugar, white sugar, 2 eggs (beaten), vanilla and butter and incorporate together well. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda. Add flour mixture to the other ingredients and mix well. Add the chocolate chips - use your discretion but I like my cookies super chippy. Put in the fridge for a while if you want this to taste better.

So to make the pretzel dough, combine water, sugar, yeast and butter. As I've mentioned before, I have no room for a mixer in my tiny NYC apartment so I just mix this with a fork. But if you have a mixer, use a mixer. It will be easier. Then hang out and let it sit for 5 minutes. Don't be impatient like I am.

Add the salt and 5 cups of flour to the mixture (over time). Add one cup of flour at a time or it gets super difficult to incorporate if you're using a fork. Once all the flour is in, I'm a fan of dropping the fork and using your hands. Knead the dough until it is smooth and doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl. If the dough feels too wet, you can add a bit more flour a spoonful at a time. Then remove from the bowl, place the dough on a flat surface (I use a wooden cutting board with a bit of flour on it so it doesn't stick) and roll into a big ball.

Exhibit A:

Coat a big bowl with canola oil (or melted butter). Put this big ball of glorious dough in the bowl and spin it around until the surface is fully coated. Lightly wet a paper towel and put on top of the ball of dough and stick it in a warm spot to rise. I usually just put it inside of the microwave and let it sit for 1 hour.

After an hour (don't be impatient), take the pretzel dough out of the microwave and the cookie dough out of the fridge. Divide the pretzel dough into 8 equal pieces. One at a time, roll the pretzel dough out into a rectangle. Use a rolling pin if you have one. I wrap my sea salt shaker in parchment paper and use that... (or a bottle of wine). After, spread cookie dough along the length of the piece.

Exhibit B:

Then, roll this concotion up into a log, enclosing the cookie dough inside. Make sure all the dough is pinched together and try to avoid any large tears.

Take the ends of the rope and form a pretzel shape. I'd suggest watching a YouTube video for this... it is harder than it looks.

Final product should look like this (but maybe less fat if you're really good):

Once you've done this for all 8 pieces, take the mixing bowl the dough was in initially and fill it with warm water + 2 tsp of baking soda.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Dunk each pretzel in the warm water mixture and place on baking sheet (4 pretzels per sheet is a good measurement). Brush the tops of the pretzels with the beaten egg wash and season LIBERALLY with sea salt. Lots of salt = better pretzels.

Bake for 10 minutes and then flip the pan and bake another 5 to 15 minutes until they are golden and the cookies oozing out are golden. I baked them for closer to 20-25 minutes in total but I think it's because my pretzels were too big. Don't overcook them.

ENJOY. OMG. THEY ARE SO GOOD. I'm hungry now.

Go Ravens!

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