Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

Here's what you'll need:

Pretzel Rods

1 Bag of Semi Sweet Chocolate

1 Bag of Green Candy Melts

1 bottle of Sprinkles

2 Mixing bowls

2 Spoons

Wax paper

Microwave

 

First take your green candy melts and cover the bottom of a bowl. If you do not have a mixing bowl you can use a tall coffee mug (which I actually think works better).

Do the same think with your milk chocolate in your bowl or mug.

 

 

I put my chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds and check it to see it's progress. Then I place it in the microwave for another 30 seconds. Times will vary depending on your microwave. Start out using too little time until you know how fast your microwave is going to melt the chocolate. The last thing you want in your house is the smell of burnt chocolate.

 

Once you take out the chocolate, mix and smooth it out with a spoon.

Take a pretzel rod and dip it into the chocolate of your choice. I find that rolling the pretzel rods along the side of the mug or bowl helps to evenly distribute the chocolate onto the rod and keeps it from getting too thick.

Once you have your chocolate onto the pretzel you can either leave them plain or add fun sprinkles. You'll need to decide quickly if you want to add them because the fresher the chocolate is on the pretzel the better the sprinkles stick to it.

For my pretzels, I added the only sprinkles I have in the house at the moment which is Easter ones. Earlier in the month I had Valentines Day Sprinkles all over them. If you decide to add sprinkles have a bowl underneath the rod to catch any sprinkles that don't make it on to the rod. That way you can reuse them and drop onto the next ones.

Once you have your sprinkles on, place the rods on your wax paper to let them harden. Give them a good hour before you bag or place in a container. You want to make sure the chocolate is hard and not sticking to the wax paper when you put them away.

You can make these chocolate dipped pretzel rods for any occasion. If you use the green candy melts you can have yourself an Easter or St. Patrick's Day dessert. I did two of mine in green but then realized I had no St. Patrick's Day sprinkles so I stuck with my milk chocolate.

 

These were my Valentine's Day ones...

 

They only take about 30 minutes to make depending on how many you want to create. Remember a typical bag of pretzel rods has 33-35 inside but there will be broken ones. Plus if you are like me... you snack along the way while making them. So enjoy these fun and easy treats for your next holiday party!

The Best Chocolate Pie

Last week my Peanut Butter Pie was a hit! I wondered how I could follow it up. So I thought what kind of pie could I make? The answer was simple... Chocolate! Who doesn't love chocolate? Your friends will go crazy over it!

What you'll need:

1 Cup of Chocolate Chips

1/2 Cup of Sugar

1 tub of Cool Whip

1/3 Cup of Milk

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla extract

1/3 Cup of Cocoa Powder

Mixing bowl

Measuring cups

Measuring spoons

Oreo Pie Crust

Electric mixer

 

The first thing you'll need to do is get your cream cheese, sugar, cocoa powder, milk and vanilla extract into your mixing bowl. Once you have it in your bowl slowly mix it with your electric mixer.

It will start to look something like this...

Once you have it well mixed, mix in only 1/4 cup of your chocolate chips.

It will look a little lumpy once you add the chocolate chips but your chocolate mixture should still remain smooth. Next open your pie crust and spoon the mixture into the pie crust.

I typically use the Oreo crust but the store was out this week. Instead this time I used a chocolate crust.

Once you've got your pie mixture evenly smoothed into the crust, you'll want to open your cool whip container. Make sure that your cool whip has warmed some because you'll need to spoon it out and spread it on top of the chocolate mix.

Last step... add the remaining chocolate chips to the top of the cool whip. I like to sprinkle them evenly on because once you drop them on to the cool whip you don't want to try to move them around. Now you've got yourself a pie! Place it in the refrigerator and let it chill.

 

For best results leave in your refrigerator 4-6 hours before serving.

Enjoy!

30 Before 30 Progress

15. Make three new desserts.
I wanted to add this challenge to my 30 Before 30 List because I tend to find myself making the same things over and over. I figured if I made it a mission to make at least three new desserts, that I would be adding to my already good list of desserts and could make them my specialties. Well after buying ingredients and whipping them up, two were a success and one was a complete fail. Let's jump right in!

1. Peanut Butter Pie. Success!

I would love to share the recipe with all of you but it came from my mother and she would kill me if I shared it to the world. I can tell you though, it does include a gram cracker crust and lots of peanut butter.

2. Vanilla Ice Cream Cake. Success!

The ice cream cake ingredients include:

1 quart of vanilla ice cream

family size pack of vanilla oreos

Sprinkles

2 bottles of caramel syrup

1 tub of cool whip

 

How to make it: Crush the oreos into a fine layer and place in 9x13 pan. Melt caramel over the oreos and freeze for 30 minutes. Remove pan from freezer and then add the ice cream evenly over top. Freeze again for 30 minutes. Remove from freezer and then add another layer of caramel and freeze again for 30 minutes. Remove from freezer and spread the entire tub of cool whip over top. Add sprinkles and place back in freezer for an hour.



3. Fruity Pebble Cookies. Fail!

Ingredients:

1-3.4 oz vanilla pudding mix

1 cup of white chocolate chips

1 cup of fruity pebbles

sugar

flour

butter

baking powder

 

I followed the directions exactly like they asked. However, these cookies turned out so awful they were not even edible. I literally scraped them into the trash. 

So even though one of the desserts was a complete fail. Clearly. I was able to make three new desserts and cross this one off my list! I've got two desserts that people loved and maybe I can keep experimenting to get a good third one!