I love Smitten Kitchen. I secretly want to be Deb Perlman's best friend. She is a great cook and lives in New York and I picture us at Zabar's together, chatting and shopping and planning dinner. I think she is smart and funny and I love her writing style.

My Mom got me the Smitten Kitchen cookbook for Christmas last year (and a cute cookbook stand to place my new cookbook on - Moms, they think of everything!) and pretty much everything in it looks amazing. I want to make all of it and yet somehow, I have hardly had time to make anything from it! I decided that was unacceptable and tackled her Chocolate Chip Brioche Pretzels over the weekend.

I actually had a difficult time with the dough - it wasn't coming together as I thought it should based on the notes in the recipe. In the end, I (and the hubby) had to coax it a bit. The result was a little bit dense for a brioche, but really delicious nonetheless. I will definitely try it again at some point to see if I can do any better. Frustratingly, I don't know where I went wrong! Normally I have a sense for my error, like, the butter wasn't quite room temperature or my baking soda is not the freshest (dries out like crazy in Colorado). This time, not a clue what happened. Oh well - onward!

After baking (and taste testing), I froze the remainder of the pretzels. They'll make an awesome brunch or treat for guests - I plan to just reheat in the oven and serve. I also considered slicing them like you would a bagel and making french toast out of them...and as I typed that I realized how awesome that sounds and made an executive decision to make that happen asap.

CHOCOLATE CHIP BRIOCHE PRETZELS RECIPE