Costco has great pretzel rolls, but they come in this huge bag which you are guaranteed to eat in two days and get all fat. Instead, just make eight of them and mitigate the weight gain. I don't know what their recipe is, but mine is kind of awesome.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
1 packet Rapid Rise yeast
1 cup warm milk
1/4 cup melted lard (just do it)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 2/3 cups flour (if you're flour isn't as dry as mine was, you might need almost 3 cups, you just want the dough to come away from the sides of the bowl easily and not be too crazy sticky.)
For the tops of the rolls:
1 beaten egg, to brush on, plus a little kosher salt for sprinkling.
For "bath" water:
5 cups water
1/3 cup baking soda
In a bowl, mix up the yeast, warm milk and sugar, then add the rest of the ingredients making sure that the baking powder is distributed evenly in the flour first. Knead the dough for a bit, you don't need to do it for a long time. Separate the dough into 8 even rolls. Let them rise uncovered on your cutting board for 30 minutes. Meanwhile bring to a boil the water and baking soda in a medium saucepan and preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
When the rolls have risen, use a slotted spatula to carefully lower each roll into the boiling baking soda water, one at a time, face down. Let each one go for about 30 seconds, then flip it over and let it boil on the underside for about ten seconds, then move it to a small oiled cookie sheet, putting them all fairly close together. If you don't have non-stick pans, you might want to line the pan with oiled parchment paper. Brush each roll with egg wash and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt.
Bake the rolls for 11 minutes, until they're dark brown like a pretzel.
