It was time to make pretzels again today. I followed the advice I got on Facebook from Lucinda, Meri, Alison, and Sam after the last time I made pretzels, and it made a difference.

I took out the butter in advance so it could properly soften. I put the yeast in the water and let it sit for a few minutes before adding it to the dry ingredients. I was extra-careful in measuring the dry ingredients and smoothed them out in the bowl before I added the water and yeast.

I had to add water after the first mixing cycle to get all of the flour incorporated, but, as suggested, I did so a teaspoon at a time; it took four teaspoons before everything was included, but then the rest of the mixing went well.

When I took the dough out after it had risen, it was only slightly tacky, and it was easy to roll into logs (and later, to shape into pretzels). I used waxed paper instead of parchment paper until I was ready to bake.

It went so well that I made a second batch so we should have some left after Memorial Day – and making that batch was uneventful, too.

What I didn’t do was take any photos of the finished pretzels, and they’re all in the freezer now. :-) But I did get a photo of the first batch after shaping them.

Thanks, everyone!

The big event for me today was at the dentist’s office, where they installed the crown on my implant. It was painless (I’d paid at the previous visit).

This afternoon, we watched a livestream of a performance by Jake Shimabukuro from AARP in honor of Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month. He was great – I don’t think the performance will be made available for later viewing, but his Mother’s Day concert is online and free at his site and of course there’s a lot of his music available on YouTube.

The weather today was stunning – we had dinner outside and it was wonderful. It’s going to heat up over the weekend, so I’m glad we could enjoy it today.