Pretzel Biscuits

Pretzels take so many forms, all of them great: crispy and soft, big and small, sticks and circles and, um, pretzel-shapes. But if I'm being honest, there's one pretzel that has an extra-special place in my heart: the soft and chewy mall pretzels that are served absolutelydrippingin butter.

What can I say? Butter and pretzels are just a beautiful pair. Which is why when the King Arthur Test Kitchen looked for more baked goods to give the pretzel treatment to (they'd already done pretzel rolls, pretzel focaccia, and even a pretzel pizza), they landed quickly on buttery biscuits.

ThesePretzel Biscuitssport a distinctive bronzed, salty top, but they are just as quick and easy as any other biscuit. Cut some butter into flour, hydrate it with tangy buttermilk, give the dough a few folds for maximal flakiness, and use apastry brushto apply a baking soda solution (no lye needed for these). Like those mall pretzels, you can slather them with more butter once they come out of the oven. But these biscuits are so naturally buttery you probably won't need to.