Thread by @tsawac

okay, so today is the day that I defy god and try to bring the Wet Pretzel into reality #blaseball

first, we must decide what Wet Pretzel means

We know that wet pretzel is doughnut-shaped, but it is not a doughnut. Doughnuts exist in #blaseball distinct from wet pretzel.

The Immaterial Plane has a good number of bakers and breadmakers. Doughnuts exist. Bagels exist. This is not a society that completely misunderstands what a pretzel is.

So we know that wet pretzels are, fundamentally, a pretzel. What is a pretzel? It's clear that wet pretzels are not the classic shape of the soft pretzel or crunchy mini-pretzel.

We also can't really bake them, or they'll stop being wet.

Let's assume it's about the composition of the dough, and the fact that there's a boiling stage followed by a distinct cooking stage?

Also, they are frosted. Dark blue. Sprinkles.

We also know that they were conceived of by a neural net and developed by a chthonic cephalopod deity, so the recipe is 100% going to be a hot mess.

I am not much of a baker, but neither is the Monitor. Don't @ me.

I am going to do a quarter-recipe, because nobody is going to want seconds of this. I am going to use the entire recipe for one Pretzel, because we know they're from Grand Rapids and I have *seen* how grotesquely oversized y'all bake things in the Midwest.

Stage one: activate the yeast. Warm water, softened butter, salt, brown sugar, a little date molasses for colour.

Amateur food photography is a horrror game.

Stage two: add flour (all-purpose King Arthur) and knead, about 10 minutes.

The texture is *extremely* unsettling to the touch. Bakers are all perverts.

Now we let it Prove. I have seen this on Bake-Off. I'm pretty sure they did pretzels in a technical one time and everybody complained about it. Everybody complaining seems like a correct result for #blaseball.

If you look at the unfrosted part of wet pretzel, it seems to have a pleasing brownish hue - not the undead pallor of a dumpling. How do we get that while keeping moistness?

My thought has been that we do some kind of poaching / papilotte situation with a brownish sauce. I am open to suggestions while I clean the kitchen.

Okay, I love y'all but it turns out that crowdsourcing a recipe from a bunch of internet gremlins who think that Gerund Pantheocide is a cool name was a bad idea. I'm going with my first thought: a poaching syrup.

A crucial role of the syrup is to add Brownness so it's got sugar, more date molasses, and coffee powder

okay while the water bath's heating let's check on whether the accelerated fungal colony has been behaving itself -

oh

(distant voice) RISE

not gonna lie I was not expecting the mycelial-mat kind of vibe here

possibly shouldn't have let it have oxygen

update: it turns out to be surprisingly workable once you flour it a little, but, um, how do I put this

when I was fifteen or sixteen, a neighbour, a very old lady who lived alone, fell, and I was the only one home, and someone called me and I went over to help her

this dough feels like the muscles of her arm

attempts at shaping it into any kind of ring have failed summarily, I'll just punch a hole in the middle later like a criminal

next stage: the baking-soda bath

a symmetriad rises from the world-ocean

Okay, shit, um. Not prepared for this bit. Papilotte, steaming, let's go?

update: the syrup does not make things look better

it's changing shape in there again, every time I think it's found its final form it defies me

also this coffee-date molasses syrup is really good, I should use it for non-cursed purposes sometime

okay I have zero idea what an appropriate cook time is for this beast but the general rubberiness makes me suspect it's done

now we've got to cool it off before we frost it

I am deadly afraid that cooling will destroy its strange vigor, but a Wet Pretzel is frosted and frosting cannot be performed on a hot lump. in the fridge it goes

One of the most attractive features of the Wet Pretzel is its indigo-blue frosting.

But I couldn't procure food colouring in this shade, so this is the closest I could get. (It's blue squeezy-packet frosting, muted with more date molasses and coffee.)

I have withdrawn our child from the ice-box, bored out its heart, and consumed it.

'Wet' was accomplished, for sure. The combination of coldness, wetness and dough is... not the best.

the moist surface and toroid shape is not the easiest to ice, yet I have persisted. she's almost there

do wish I could have done indigo, though

All I need to do is figure out some kind of sprinkle situation. I hadn't really thought this step through, but I've got some -

- wait

okay, good, I suppose that step took care of itself

wet pretzel, everybody! get your wet pretzel

if the ILB suddenly, for no particular reason, finds itself in need of a new food and beverage director, they know where to find me.

(broke the thread, it continues here: )

https://twitter.com/tsawac/status/1372669717249368066

FINAL ATTEMPT TO FIX THREAD

https://twitter.com/tsawac/status/1372669717249368066