Pretzel Bites update

Pretzel bites were ok on the test run, but, not amazing. And, as I said in the post when they were in the oven, a little labor intensive. I guess I was drinking too much, because I posted out of order, the one with the glossy photo from the beautiful recipe site posting second for whatever reason, so maybe it's less labor intensive if you've had less wine...I don't know. They looked nice:

Though, I don't have a pastry brush, so I dipped them in egg wash and they got a little too much on there...They were chewy, and tasted like soft pretzel!

 But, they were a bit too salty, and there was something off about them. I can't put my finger on it, but my Mr. Man said the very same thing, without prompt. I felt like there was too much baking soda in the baptizmal water (you have to boil them like bagels, that's how they become chewy), but I'm not totally sure that's it.
I didn't want to make bites with the second half of the dough after the first half produced 30 (holy cow, at least you get a lot of bang for your buck!) so I split it and made 2 little pretzel bread loves, which I gave to neighbors.

I have not heard back from said neighbors, and they have complimented me on baked goods of days gone by, so, yeah I think this first try was a little off.  

I don't have time to perfect this, so I'm going a whole other route and making a damn cheese ball. Amy Sedaris's Cluster Haven's Pepper Mill Cheese Ball. I have never made this either, but I have made other cheese balls before, and other cheese balls from Amy Sedaris before, so I'm feeling pretty good about this. Can't decide if I'm gonna tweak it and roll it in nuts cause that looks like a lot of pepper, or some pepper and nuts...I don't know, but cheese ball is my game plan for the office white elephant party.