Like many people, I cannot get enough of the pretzel trend. I enjoy many different versions of the soft-baked pretzel, whenever possible. In fact, my meal selection is easily swayed by a pretzel bun. Oh that sandwich comes on a pretzel bun? Sold. But of course, my favorite is making my own pretzel buns at home.

Now Fleischmann’s Yeast is making it even easier to make your own pretzel creations at home. Fleischmann’s Simply Homemade Baking Mixes is introducing Pretzel Creations, which makes fresh-baked pretzels in less than an hour. The package contains pretzel mix, yeast, baking soda and pretzel salt – all you need is water and oil.

In a large bowl, I combined the pretzel mix, yeast, water, and oil. According to the directions all that was left was to mix it together and then let it rise, covered, for only 25 minutes! But I decided to knead my dough a little bit to get a smooth dough which I am more accustomed to.

After the dough was done rising, I decided to divide the dough in half and make two different things. With one half I made regular pretzels and they came out perfect. I served them with a bacon cheddar ranch dipping sauce.

With the other half, I decided to stuff the dough with apples tossed in cinnamon-sugar. After boiling, I sprinkled them with more cinnamon-sugar. Don’t they look like little apple pies?

They even tasted like apple pie, but with a pretzel crust. Originally I had contemplated stuffing them with apple pie filling, but worried that would be messy and more difficult to seal. Using fresh apple slices and cinnamon-sugar sounded good enough to me and they turned out to be delicious. Eat alone or serve with a cinnamon-sugar cream cheese dip.

Two years ago: Basil Butter