My pretzel dough didn't rise. What now?!

Cool air or old yeast will keep your bread dough from rising properly. If a bit of heat doesn't revive the yeast, you can mix a little more yeast into the dough....Create a warmer place for the dough: Fill a large pan with boiling water and place it in the oven on the lowest rack, or heat a mug of water for 2 minutes in a microwave.....Place the dough (in its bowl) in the oven or microwave along with the hot water. Leave it to rise.....If the dough still doesn't rise, add more yeast. Mix yeast from a new package with 1/4 cup warm water and 1/2 tsp. sugar. Let it sit for 10 minutes until foam forms, to be sure the yeast is active.....Knead the yeast mixture into the dough......Leave the dough in a warm place to rise..........

If you have no more yeast, turn the dough into tasty crackers or bread sticks: Knead with grated cheese, roll thin, sprinkle with salt and black pepper, cut into squares or thin strips, then bake at 325 for 10 minutes or until golden brown....


Good luck..........

Well, it could be due to several reasons, some of which you can come back from and some of which you cannot...

Yeast needs 3 things in order to rise properly: moisture, proper temperature, and time. The first I'm sure is correct as long as you followed the recipe. It helps to soften the yeast in a little warm water until it is foamy before adding any of the other ingredients. Temperature can be fixed if it is too low, but if you raise the temperature too much, you will kill the yeast. Once the yeast is dead, you can't bring it back and the only thing to do with it is throw it out... In order to get it to rise, I usually put my yeast doughs in a bowl covered with a damp cloth on top of the stove, with the stove turned on. If you stove top is hot to the touch with the oven on, you can put a dishcloth under the bowl. And then just be patient! Some days it takes longer and some days it doesn't take as long to rise as others. It depends on the temperature of the room, the spot you have it in the kitchen, the humidity, even something as little as the pressure in the room. If you think a dough won't rise, sometimes it will suprise you if you just give it a little longer...

If it's really dead though, there's nothing you can do with it...
Hope that helps!

Probably means your yeast was old, or not activated with the right water tempurature.

If you don't want to discard it, you could try a few things. Do a test with flat little cakes (like a thick tortilla) and deep-fry one - if it comes out good, do up the rest of the dough.

Or roll the dough out thin, and stuff it with some interesting meat and/or cheese filling and roll it up like a jelly roll and bake.

You could also add a little more fresh yeast and let it try again. The added brown sugar may have overloaded the yeast and it grew too fast and died early. This can happen if you forget to add salt, or put too much sugar.
Try a half a package of fast-acting yeast and knead it in and let it rise again. You may save it.