The Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit Review You Didn’t Know You Needed

Inside: Curious about the Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit? Need a good laugh to help deal with the chaos of life? You’re in the right spot for both!

In the blogging world, it’s important to pick a niche and stick to it so that your website is cohesive and readers know what to expect.

Here I write about working motherhood and my topics fall into three categories, managing family, managing career, and managing to laugh through it all. Nowhere in that lineup is there a section for baking product reviews.

But it’s a unique time, and blogging niches be damned. I’m writing about pretzels, again. And if you’re a stressed-out working mom jonesing for a snack, this Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit review might be exactly what you need right now.

New Year, New Me

At the beginning of the year, many of us break out our planners and journals and start listing out our goals for the year. Write the next great American novel, run a marathon, learn an instrument, eat healthier. All wonderful and admirable goals.

One of my goals this January was to cool it on the carbohydrates a bit. I’m relatively active and am fortunate to be in good health, but I do love me a good carb and the further I get into my 30s the longer those carbs want to stick around on my thighs. Which is fine, but I don’t like shopping and buying new pants is a pain. So I thought I would just maybe eat a little less bread and sugar.

I was doing a pretty good job of it too. Salads at the office for lunch, veggie burgers without buns, only eating half the bowl of cookie dough instead of the entire thing. Progress!

But then March rolled around.

These are My Emotional Support Carbs

Suddenly we had all landed ourselves in the middle of a global health pandemic. Cutting carbs became the last thing on my mind.

I was a little too preoccupied with worrying about my family, dressing up like a bank robber to go dodge strangers at the grocery store, and trying to homeschool my children while also working full time. #Priorities.

So I proceeded to eat all the bread, fall off the vegetarian wagon, and scrape melted ice cream off the box of an ice cream cake… I’m not ashamed of this. Global. Health. Pandemic. I’m still eating some salads too, it’s just that now I’m more of a “do your best a tarian.”

Then one day about 7 weeks into this fiasco I work up feeling like I should get back on my healthy eating train, if nothing else to have something to work towards. I love a good goal.

The universe had other plans though.

Get In My Belly

I was mid goal setting lying in my bed while scrolling through my phone when I saw that Auntie Anne’s Pretezels was selling DIY pretzel kits.

Auntie. Anne’s. Pretzels! In. My. Home!

It was like the 1990s calling me home to days of my youth, back when I had a metabolism and when I enjoyed trips to the mall. I could taste the happiness, perfectly salted with a hint of nostalgia and pizza sauce.

Yup, forget it. It was a sign. Soft pretzels were once again twisting their way back into my life. Give me all the carbs.

I promptly ordered the Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit and then rolled downstairs joyously and ate some pancakes. With fruit. I’m not a monster.

Then I waited impatiently for my kit to arrive, staring out the window longingly as each delivery truck drove by. In came industrial packets of paper towels that I ordered by accident, glitter glue that Glen thought might be fun to make slime with (????), and and an eyebrow pencil I hadn’t realized I needed until spending much too much time looking at my own face on Zoom. But no pretezels.

One day my kit arrived though. And by “one day” I mean the exact date the order said it would be delivered on my receipt.

And it was worth the 5-7 business day wait. Oh was it worth the wait. What’s in an Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit you may ask? Don’t worry, I’ll describe it in mouth-watering food court smell detail.

Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit – The Instructions

The Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit includes:

A bag of dry ingredients for dough
Yeast
Baking Soda
Cinnamon Sugar (if you’re fancy)
Salt

Yup, it’s as simple as that. Dissolve the yeast in water, mix it in with the bag of dough ingredients, kneed the dough, and let it rise for 30 minutes.

Then spread out the dough, cut it into 10 strips, rope the dough like that kid at the mall pretzel stand always did so expertly, and wrap it into pretzel form.

From there, you dissolve the baking soda in water and dip your pretzels into the water. I don’t really understand that part but I don’t need to. Either do you. Just follow the instructions.

Last is a sprinkle of salt, or not if you are going cinnamon sugar variety, and in the oven for five minutes, quick turn in the oven, and then five more minutes.

Brush with butter and devour.

Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit: The Review

Now the important question. How was it?

In a word?

EverythingIEverWantedItToBeAndMore

I loved this pretzel so much I think I blacked out. I remember my kids also enjoying their pretzels but I wasn’t paying much attention to them. Instead I was being transported in time and space to 1997 and a mall in South Eastern Massachusetts after having purchased a pair of obnoxiously flared jeans from American Eagle.

To celebrate the pretzel, I later subjected my family to my rendition of NSYNC’s Bye Bye Bye and what I remembered from the choreography of my 8th grade lip sync to Cest Le Vie by B*Witched. They didn’t appreciate it, I didn’t care.

Find Your Happy

If you also enjoy soft pretzels, then the Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Kit might be exactly what you need during the quarantine. It’s reasonably priced, delicious, and tastes like your youth. You know, back when you could go around hugging people and getting free samples.

Or, when the kits sell out you can check out this copycat recipe that I’ve heard good things about!

But if pretzels are not your jam, I still encourage you to find your happy. Whatever it looks like. I mean, not dangerous illegal stuff. Don’t go buy a tiger or something, but find a simple pleasure.

We’re all super stressed out right now. Life is confusing and challenging and we are missing our loved ones like crazy. We don’t know when things will be back to normal, or if they ever really will be. But isn’t that all the more reason to find a pocket of joy? And all the more reason to embrace that pocket of joy with as much enthusiasm as you would the friends you can’t see right now?

I realize this was an intense post about pretzels, and it seemingly had nothing to do with being a working mom. But it kind of did though, huh? What’s more “working mom” then laughing your way through difficult times and doing what you’ve gotta do?

Stay safe. Stay healthy. And go get some pretzels.