We are having lots of fun here exploring fairy tales and coming up with foods that we can make to suit each one. After two girl focused fairy tales, Cinderella and The Little Mermaid, I decided we should go with one a little more unisex and we chose Peter Pan.
Bear and Bee have watched Disney's Peter Pan many times and know this version of the story well so I found an animated Peter Pan story online that was slightly different. They both had lots of fun exploring this one on the iPad while I got organised to make some Pretzel Swords.
Swords and Pirates go hand in hand and both Bear and Bee love creating with dough in the kitchen so it seemed like a great fit.
We have made pretzels before and they turned out really well but I wanted a recipe that was faster to put together and bake. This one for Homemade Soft Pretzels from Sally's Baking Addiction seemed to fit with what I needed. As Sally's list of ingredients in the recipe is in US measurements I have rewritten it below in Australian metric measurements. I encourage you to go and have a look at her original recipe as it has more detailed steps, extra tips and some interesting variations.
And I have to say these Pretzels turned out even better than I hoped. They were light on the inside, chewy on the outside and perfect with no toppings, salt or even cinnamon sugar.
This would be a great activity for a Peter Pan or Pirate themed birthday party. The whole thing takes less than 30 minutes but you could have the dough ready to go and the children could shape and paint it before baking. Then you would have some super easy and extra tasty party food ready to go.
Peter Pan Pretzel Swords
Adapted slightly from Homemade Soft Pretzels by Sally's Baking Addiction
Makes 8 to 10 or more depending on size
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (I used dried yeast and it worked fine)
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons sugar
4 cups plain flour (you may need a little more for dusting the surface to knead the dough)
1 large egg, beaten
food colouring in desired colours to decorate
extra salt, melted butter, cinnamon sugar for sprinkling
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 210° Celsius fan forced. Line 2 baking trays with non stick baking paper.
2. Add the yeast to the warm water and stir for one minute until mostly mixed in.
3. Mix in salt and sugar.
4. Slowly add 3 cups of the flour. Do it 1 cup at a time so it mixes in well.
5. Mix in another 3/4 cup of flour or a little more until the dough is no longer sticky.
6. Knead the dough on a floured surface for 3 minutes and shape into a ball (or however long you kids are happy to play with it!)
7. Divide the dough into small balls.
8. Roll each ball into a sausage shape about 20 cm long. Make sure one end is thicker than the other.
9. Flatten the thicker end of the sausage shape and bend it up to make the blade of the sword.
10. Bend the thinner end around to make the handle end of the sword (stick the dough end on with a little water).
11. Use clean paintbrushes and food colouring to decorate the sword dough shapes.
12. Place the sword shapes onto the lined trays and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
13. Brush the partially baked sword shapes with the beaten egg (optional: sprinkle with a little salt after brushing on the egg) and bake for another 5 minutes. You can skip brushing the dough shapes with the egg and just bake for 15 minutes however the egg wash does give it a nice shiny finish.
14. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Enjoy while they are still slightly warm.
We also baked some non painted sword shapes. To do these we brushed them with the beaten egg before placing them in the oven for 10 minutes. The shapes were then placed under a hot grill for 5 minutes to get them extra golden brown.
And it wouldn't be Bee and Bear cooking if they didn't have to add some more girly shapes too. We decided to use gingerbread people cutters and make Wendy, Michael and John. We don't have a fairy cutter though, so the girls opted for butterflies to represent Tinkerbell.
***Affiliate Link***
If you would like to own a copy of Peter Pan either in book form or on DVD you can click on the links below to go to my Fishpond Affiliate store.
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