Seriously amazing pretzels... soft & chewy on the inside with a browned crust on the outside that softens slightly with the butter. Changes I made: only used 4 cups flour (half unbleached white, half wheat), used brown sugar instead of white, and made this in the bread machine on dough cycle. Absolute best topping HANDS DOWN was parmesan-garlic that I made by whizzing some fresh parmesan and garlic powder (the kind with parsley & herbs in) in a mini-food processor. Sprinkle over the pretzels after you butter the tops. The only change I would make is to reduce the sugar to 1/3 cup. They were just a bit too sweet (even with sweet toppings on, the sweetness was too much and tasted like sweet bread instead of a pretzel). And I am a HUGE sweet lover! Husband and party-goers were hovering near the stove to claim pretzels as they were coming out of the oven and gobbled them up as fast as I could get them made. MAKE A DOUBLE BATCH...!!

Reviewed On: Oct. 14, 2009

I added more peanut butter and more banana as other reviewers had suggested and while I could taste each element and the muffins turned out very moist, they were just BLAH. I do not think that a muffin texture is strong enough to handle peanut butter AND banana (and I even added in a 1/2 cup oats for some texture!) This needs to be modified into a cookie and then maybe it would be worth eating. I gave it two stars because it was a great tender & moist muffin and the protein kept us going in the mornings. The flavor just wasn't there. I will not be making this recipe again.

Reviewed On: Oct. 14, 2009

I did not change this recipe ONE BIT. That is a huge thing for me because I fiddle with EVERYTHING! I love how delicious the actual cookie part of this even aside from the chocolate chips. Other chocolate chip cookie recipes have rather tasteless batters but the brown sugar and extra vanilla give this dough a caramel-y vanilla-y flavor that is out of this world. DO NOT OVERBAKE THESE! The way I can easily tell is that the tops just start to crust over and are dry to the touch (not dry by appearance). They finish baking in the couple minutes you let them cool on the cookie sheet before moving them to a rack.

Reviewed On: Feb. 27, 2009