Sliced into my cinnamon swirl again today for French toast. My goodness!

Some of you saw that I got a new pullman pan this week. A 13 x 4 x 4! I started making a loaf of enriched sandwich bread, but as I punched it down, I thought how in the world am I going to eat all this bread? But, if I made it cinnamon bread? I would eat it all so that’s what I did.

A few things I worked out at the bench tonight, written down while they’re fresh. This is the rope and shaping stuff I want to walk you through tomorrow. 🥨 Don’t ball them up When you divide your dough into portions, don’t roll each piece into a tight ball. A ball builds tension, and then you spend the whole time fighting that tension trying to get a long rope. Just cut your pieces and set them aside loose. Cover them so they don’t dry out. Relaxed dough rolls out a whole lot easier than a tight, tense ball. 🥨 Start with a little sausage When you’re ready to shape, take a piece, flatten it out, and roll it up into a short little sausage. Now put one hand right in the middle of that sausage and roll back and forth, just in the center. You’ll watch it thin out in the middle and bulge on both ends. That’s exactly what you want. 🥨 Roll from the middle out Now bring both hands in. Start in the middle and roll outward toward the ends. Those bulges sitting on the ends will travel out as you roll, and that’s how you get an even rope, thicker in the middle and tapered at the tips. That’s your pretzel shape right there. 🥨 When it fights, rotate Here’s the part that saves your sanity. Your rope is not going to reach full length on the first pass. As soon as it starts fighting you, snapping back, shrinking up on you, stop. Don’t force it. Set that rope down and start the next one. Roll that one till it fights, set it down, start the next. By the time you come back around to the first rope, it’s had a few minutes to relax, and now it’ll give you more length. Start in the middle, roll back out to the ends. If it fights again, set it down and go around the rotation one more time. That rotation is the whole trick. You’re never fighting the dough. You’re just letting each rope rest while you work the others. Patience does the stretching for you. 🥨 A word on size A 115g piece makes a big, bakery-style pretzel, and a standard batch gives you eight of those. If you want smaller pretzels, drop down to around 65 to 75g and you’ll get roughly double the count. Smaller ones are perfect for sharing and for a market table where folks want a two dollar snack, not a meal.

These just came out of the oven. Look at that color. I’ve been baking and taking notes all day, and I’ve got plenty to share with you guys tomorrow. Real talk on the dough, the bath, the shaping, all of it. Everything I want you to know before you start. For tonight, I’m gonna have a couple. See you in the morning for the bake-along. Bring your questions and your starter if you’re going sourdough. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐

Guys im so excited, probably more excited than a kid at Christmas. Just made my first sourdough starter, and her name is Sandy after @Sandy Chong 🥰🤣