Yesterday, everyone in the office brought in like, every left over sweet from memorial day parties. So after the 3rd “there’s a cake in the kitchen” email, I realized I needed to make something nice and savory for tea time today. I’ve been wanting to make these stuffed beer cheese pretzel bites for a while, because love love love pretzels. And really what’s better than a beer pretzel stuffed with beer cheese?
Tasty actually made some of these recently. Of course they’re not beer pretzels, but they’re an easier, faster version of these. Probably not as good, but I’m also totally bias. These are actually really easy to make, they just need rising time.
Basically, it’s a yeasted recipe. I use this jar of active yeast. It’s long term investment that’s cheaper than just getting packets, but if you don’t make yeasted breads often, just use a packet. To make sure it’s alive, you have to proof it. Mix it with warm water and sugar and it’ll foam up:
Yeast nice and foamy
Alive and well
Then you pour the yeasty water, melted butter, and beer (I used Boston Lager because people on the internet claimed it was their go to beer for beer cheese soup but really anything “bready with strong malts”: Ambers or red ales, scotch ales, brown ales, bocks, vienna lagers).
Stir it and lightly knead it all together into a smooth ball. If it’s too sticky add a bit more flour.
Then cover it and let it rise for an hour and make the cheese filling. I used Broma Bakery’s beer cheese dip because it looked totally delicious. You want to let it cool and slightly solidify while the dough rise so it’s easier to work with.
Then you want to rip off little bite sized chunks of dough and roll it up.
Flatten it kind of rectangularly and smear a bit of cheese in the center
Then fold the two long ends together
Fold up the two sides
Fold the four corners in diagonally
Then pinch together all the seams and roll the ball around in your hands
Continue doing this until you’re out of dough. Then, in a pot of boiling water and baking soda, drop each ball in for 30 seconds
Then return them to your work surface to drain. You can totally tell them apart so don’t worry about getting working and boiled balls mixed up
Boiled on the left, not on the right
Then transfer them to two lined baking sheets and brush them with your egg wash and generously salt them
You can kinda see the ones that weren’t sealed well or had a weak wall. It’s actually totally ok if some of them leak and ooze. They’re still delicious they just won’t look 100% pretty
Oozing cheese
But anyway, just 15 minutes of baking and you have delicious, stuffed beer cheese pretzel bites to share with everyone.
They’re so tasty I considered not bringing them in and instead eating them all. So I made a second batch and kept a bunch for myself. #worthit
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup warm water - about 115-120 degrees - warm to the touch but not scalding
- 2 1/4 tsp or 1 packet active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 4 - 4 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 3/4 cup beer - something bready with strong malts: Ambers or red ales, scotch ales, brown ales, bocks, vienna lagers. I used Boston Lager and it turned out delicious
- 1/3 cup baking soda
- 8 cups water
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp beer
- Course sea salt/kosher salt/pretzel salt
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup beer
- 3 tbsp heavy cream
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1 cup sharp shredded cheddar cheese
- salt to taste
Instructions
- In a large measuring cup, lightly stir together water, yeast and sugar. Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes. If the yeast is alive it'll bubble and foam. If it doesn't foam, dump it out and use new yeast.
- Meanwhile, mix together 4 cups of flour and salt in a large bowl. Measure out your beer and melted butter.
- When the yeast is ready, pour it into the flour along with the beer and melted butter. Stir to combine and then using your hands, knead the dough together until it forms a soft ball. The ball may be really sticky, and if that's the case add a bit more flour and continue mixing.
- Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, then flip it over so all sides are lightly oiled. Cover and allow to rise for an hour in a warm place.
- While the dough is rising, make the cheese filling. In a small sauce pan on medium heat, melt the butter then whisk in flour. Continue whisking until mixer is a light brown. Then stir in the beer, cream, and mustard and continue stirring for about 5 minutes. The mixture will thicken considerably. Then take off the heat, stir in the cheese until melted, add salt to taste and set aside allowing it to cool.
- When the dough is done rising, bring the water to a boil in a large pot with the baking soda, preheat your oven to 450F, line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and whisk an egg together with one tbsp of beer
- Lightly oil your work space and rip off bite size pieces of the dough, one at a time roll them in your hand, flatten them into slightly oblong ovals, spread a bit of cheese in the center and fold them up. You want to seal in the cheese completely and smooth away the creases. Continue until you're out of dough.
- Boil in batches of about 8 (or whatever the capacity of your pot is. You don't want them to have room to move) for 30 seconds. Transfer them to your workspace to drain a little before moving them to your baking sheet. Brush each ball with your egg and beer mixture and sprinkle with salt.
- Bake for 13-17 minutes, until nice and golden.
- These are best served warm and immediately but you can store them in an airtight container in the fridge then toss them in the oven on 350 for about 5 minutes until they're warm again
