Soft Buttered Pretzels

This recipe is from the back of a bag of Pillsbury "Best" Unbleached Flour. My notes and adaptations are in brackets [].

3 to 3 1/2 cups Pillsbury Best Flour, All Purpose or Unbleached
[I used one cup of whole wheat flour and bread flour for the rest.]
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 (1/4 oz.) package active dry yeast
1 cup water
1 tablespoon Crisco All Vegetable Shortening
[I used melted butter.]
6 cups water
1/4 cup baking soda
1 tablespoon water
Crisco No-Stick Spray [I used butter.]
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Pretzel salt, sesame seeds or poppy seeds

Combine 1 cup flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a medium [electric mixer] bowl; blend well. Heat 1 cup water and shortening in a small saucepan to 100-110 F. [I learned if you use quick-rising yeast liquid should/can be as hot as 120-130.] Add liquid to flour mixture. Blend at low speed of electric mixer until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed. Stir in by hand an additional 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups flour or until dough pulls cleanly away from sides of bowl.

Knead in an additional 1/2 to 3/4 cup flour.
[I used my electric mixer's dough hook, starting when adding in the "additional flour". Also, I found this recipe to be a little dry ~ even without this last flour addition. I had to pour in a little more warm water to make it hold together.]

Place dough in greased bowl; cover loosely with plastic wrap and kitchen towel. Let rise in a warm place (80-85 F) until light and doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
[With quick-rising dough, this can be just a quick 15-minute "rest"!]

Spray cooky sheets with no-stick spray [or grease with butter]. Punch down dough; divide into 12 [I made 16] pieces. Roll each piece into a 16-inch rope; form into pretzel shape. Place on greased cooky sheets. Cover; let rise in warm place about 15-20 minutes.

Adjust oven rack to the TOP position. Heat oven to 400 F. Combine 6 cups water and baking soda in a shallow sided saucepan; bring to a gentle boil. Slowly drop pretzels into water, one at a time, cooking 5 seconds on each side. Remove from water with slotted spoon, return to greased cooky sheet. Sprinkle with pretzel salt, sesame seeds or poppy seeds.

Bake for 8 minutes; brush with melted butter. Bake 2 additional minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from cooky sheet; brush generously with remaining butter serve warm.

To freeze pretzels to bake later:
I like the convenience of using frozen dough to make hot fresh pretzels ~ it's much quicker than making a whole recipe from the start, and requires very little effort.
To do this, I freeze pretzels just after shaping them, on greased aluminum foil, on a cooky sheet, well-covered with plastic wrap. When they are frozen, I tranfer them and their greased aluminum foil off of the cooky sheet, into a large freezer bag. It is fine if the foil crinkles. When you are ready to bake them, open the freezer bag, carefully smooth out the foil and frozen pretzels onto a baking sheet and let them thaw/rise in a warm place near the woodstove, if you use one, or in a warm sunny place, if you have one.
When they are risen, pick up with the regular baking instructions.