DIY: Chocolate Covered Pretzels

 I LOVE the mix of salty with sweet, specifically pretzels and chocolate. 

Chocolate covered pretzels are an easy fix for a salty/sweet craving!  I have one issue with making chocolate covered pretzels, however, and it is that when I try to cover the ENTIRE pretzel, I get chocolate all over the place! (my hands, the counter, the floor, etc.)  I have a new method that still gives me a bit of salt and sweet, while not creating a mess – only covering half the pretzel! 

For this quick and easy DIY - you will need semi-sweet chocolate chips and pretzels.  I use about 1 cup semi sweet chocolate for 40 pretzels – this doesn’t have to be exact.

First, melt your chocolate chips.  I always use my Crofton soup bowl from Aldi to melt my chocolate in the microwave.  The bowl is microwave safe and has a nice handle so I don’t have to touch anything hot!  It also has a wide opening that I can fit my hand in without getting covered in chocolate!

To melt chocolate chips in the microwave, put the bowl with chocolate chips in the microwave for intervals of 30 seconds.  Between each interval stir the chocolate chips, making sure to move the ones on the bottom to the top so nothing burns.  When you don’t have anymore lumps, your chocolate chips are melted!

While the chocolate is melting in the microwave, cover your work space with wax paper for a place to lay your pretzels.  This step makes clean up much easier!

When the chocolate is melted, cover your pretzels by holding one side of the pretzel and dip the other side into the chocolate half way.  Wipe any excess off the back of the pretzel on the side of the container.  Lay the pretzel on the wax paper to set.  Continue until you have used up all of your pretzels or all of your chocolate!  Tada! Easy peasy – you made chocolate covered pretzels and didn’t make a mess! 

If you want, you can add sprinkles to your tasty treat to make them more festive!  While the chocolate is still “soft” sprinkle your choice of sprinkles onto the chocolate for a bit of extra fun!  I made three different “kinds” of pretzels, some with white sprinkles, some with multi-colored sprinkles and some that were just plain chocolate covered pretzels.

Now let your pretzels set until the chocolate is solid! 

You can store these in a plastic container, or make a small gift bag with plastic wrap and some baking twine or ribbon!  These could be such a cute gift!  I store mine in a plastic container in the fridge so the chocolate doesn’t become soft.    

There you go, chocolate covered pretzels, in about 10 minutes and without any mess!  For other quick and easy snacks, try out these chocolate covered Oreos or no-bake cookies!

Leave a comment below of your favorite salty and sweet snack!

Chocolate Covered Snowflake Oreos

I feel like there is usually a “lull” in creative and fancy treats between Christmas and Valentine’s day.  Since most creative treats surround a holiday, I decided that in order to fill this gap, I'll make something truly unique “just because”!

I really enjoy chocolate covered Oreos, especially my Christmas Tree Oreos because these chocolate covered cookies are super easy to make.  They aren’t completely covered in chocolate, which means that I don’t have to get my entire hand covered in chocolate because a cookie dropped in to the melted chocolate by accident (please say you know what I mean!)  

I thought to myself, why can’t I make a similar treat, just with a different “picture”.  Why not snowflakes?

And thus the idea for Chocolate Covered Snowflake Oreos was created!

In order to make these easy winter treats I used the below items:

- Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

- White Sprinkles

- White Candy Melts

- Oreo/Off Brand Cookies

I had the white sprinkles on hand, but you can totally do this with just the white candy melts!

First, let’s get prepared.  Melt your semi sweet chocolate in the microwave.  Start with 30 seconds at a time until melted.  Make sure to stir in between each 30 second interval. 

While the chocolate is melting, lay out some wax paper to place your cookies until they set.

When your chocolate is melted, cover one side of the cookie by holding onto one side of the cookie sandwich, and lighting dipping in the other.  You will need to “wipe” off any excess onto the side of the container you used to melt the chocolate.

Then, while the chocolate is still soft, sprinkle a few white sprinkles for “flurries”.

While these cookies set-up, melt the white candy melts.  Tip:  I usually put candy melts straight into a non-reusable piping bag and put that into the microwave to melt the candies so I don’t have to dirty any extra dishes to clean up.

Once the candy melts are melted, start drawing your snowflakes!  I cut my tip a bit fatter than I originally wanted, but the treats were just for myself so it was okay that they weren’t perfect.  No two snowflakes look alike, so it’s okay if they aren’t all the same!   Try out different designs!

Once the cookies set-up, I always store them in the fridge so that the chocolate doesn’t get soft.  But who am I kidding, these treats were gone so fast they wouldn’t have had time to get soft!

Enjoy these with a nice cup of hot cocoa or homemade latte as you sit down to enjoy some family time! 

Pull - Apart Pesto Bread

I want to share a fun new recipe that is made from scratch, but super easy!  I made pull-apart bread with pesto as a side dish to our Italian Night dinner, and it was so easy, I'm going to add it as a regular side dish!  If you aren't a huge fan of pesto, try this recipe with marinara! 

If you don't know, pull-apart bread is a type of bread that is made in a way that bakes together in a “loaf”, but able to be pulled apart to eat in serving size portions.   

In order to make this recipe you will need:

Bread Dough

Pesto (try my basic recipe)

Mozzarella Cheese

Parmesan Cheese

To start, make bread according to the recipe.  I use Betty Crocker’s pizza dough because it is quick and easy, as well as tasty!

Once the dough has risen, take the dough and make 1 in to 1.5 in dough balls.  The separate dough balls is what causes the bread to be able to "pull" apart, so the size determines the "serving" size of one pulled apart piece.

Once the balls are made, roll them in pesto and place them in pan, I used an 8 inch cake pan, but you can use a loaf pan or even a casserole dish!

Once all the balls are made, spread some pesto on top of the balls to make sure each crease is covered.  Next, cover the top with enough mozzarella cheese to completely cover the bread and then sprinkle the parmesan cheese for taste.

Last, bake the dough according to the bread dough recipe.        

Now all you have to do is pull it apart!

Have you ever made pull apart bread before?

Let me know if you try this recipe in the comments!

Basic Pesto Recipe

I’m going to start off by saying I love pesto, it is so fresh tasting!  I also enjoy making my own pesto, but sometimes, finding the right recipe can be hard.  They can include ingredients like basil, arugula, chickpeas, walnuts, and countless different cheeses to just name a few.  I'm never one to just stick to a rigid recipe, I like a bit of fluidity to use what I have on hand.  Sometimes I have arugula from my spring garden, other times I just have basil from my aerogarden.  Sometimes I have parmesan cheese, but if I run I usually have mozzarella on hand.  

I like to be able to keep my recipes open to variation to let me be creative with flavors, but also keep me from going to the grocery store because I just used the last bit of parmesan for something else. 

 

In order to let myself have this creativity with a pesto recipe, I decided to lump some of the same categories together and find a theme.  Basil, herbs, and arugula are leafy greens.  Walnuts, chick peas, and pecans are nuts.  Parmesan and mozzarella are cheeses.  Olive oil is just, well olive oil.  Flavor enhancers like garlic and pepper are "optional".

Basic Pesto Recipe: 

2 cups leafy greens

1/2 cup cheese

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup nuts 

1 tbl “optional”

 Put all the items in your food processor and process until everything is fully mixed and smooth.  Taste test to make sure you have a pesto you are happy with before putting in a food safe container in the fridge. 

For an easy party appetizer, sprinkle cheese on pesto and serve with pita chips or crackers!  Or add some to a chicken for quick Italian Night dinner.

Do you experiment with recipes?  Or do you stick with the exact ingredients?  How do you enjoy pesto?  Comment below, I would love to know!

How To: Mini Flower Pot Cakes

My most recent dessert art masterpiece was inspired by one of my favorite youtubers - -Yolanda Gamp at "How to Cake It."  She is brilliant when it comes to cake decorating, especially with fondant.  Her explanations of how she creates designer cakes will give you the confidence to go straight to your kitchen and do the exact same thing yourself. Although it takes a bit more patience than most cake decorating methods, I wanted to try my own hand at using fondant and making a cake that looked like something other than cake.  I decided to try my hand at making mini flower pot cakes! 

Before I started, I wrote out my idea of what I wanted my finished product to look like, as well as made list of materials needed.   Now, I did not use Yolanda’s cake or buttercream recipe, because I wanted to see if I could make a fancy cake with the everyday cake supplies – boxed cake mix and store bought icing - showing that anyone can make this crafty dessert.

Without further ado, this is how I made mini flower pot cakes:

I baked my store-bought cake mix into cupcakes ad left them cool before I started building my flower pot cakes.

Next, I leveled the cakes and staked them with chocolate frosting in between them. 

Then, I frosted the outside of the cakes and put them in the fridge to set for about 20 minutes.

While the cakes were in the fridge, I started to knead my fondant.  I used Wilton’s White Fondant with some brown food coloring kneaded until I got the color I wanted for “ceramic flower pot” color.

Next, I took my cakes out of the fridge and measured their height and circumference to use to cut out my fondant. 

I rolled out my fondant to about a 1/4^th of an inch thick and cut a long rectangle that measured with a width that was a half inch wider than the height of the cakes, and a length the same as the circumference of the cakes.  I then wrapped the fondant around the cake and cut the edge to create a clean seam.

Then I cut a thinner rectangle for the lip of the flower pot the same length, but only about an inch in width.  I attached this piece to be level with the first and cut a clean seam.  Now I have a flower pot that needs to be “planted”!

Next, I made a hole in the cake with the back end of a beater from my hand mixer, you could use a straw for this step too! This hole is to place the “flower” in the flower pot.  I decided to plant up some mint cuttings from my AeroGarden, they are pretty, smell great, and edible!

Now, I needed to make some “Oreo dirt”.  I took the cream out of twelve Oreo cookies and crunched up the cookies in a plastic baggie. 

Once the cookies were in tiny pieces, I planted up my flower pots!  I put the mint cuttings into the hole and filled in the top of the cake with the Oreo dirt.  These are perfect to brighten up a rainy weekend or any garden related party!

Have you ever made an “object” out of cake?  What would you like for me to try next?  Have you ever used fondant? 

Galaxy Sugar Cookies: How To

Stargazing season is upon us!  It is just warm enough to stay out at dark without freezing!  We enjoy gazing at stars, planets and galaxies like Andromeda!  I decided to task myself with a unique idea – making galaxy cookies without icing, just sugar cookie dough.  I thought of this idea after looking at one of my husband’s astro-images of Andromeda.  How pretty!

I decided to start with the pin wheel sugar cookie idea to create the “spin” of the galaxy with cookie dough.  These cookies are perfect for stargazing parties, astronaut themed birthdays, and even just because!

Here’s what you need:

1.  Sugar Cookie Dough – any kind will do, even prepackaged cookie dough should work fine.

2.  Food Coloring – I used red, pink, purple, and blue

Let’s get started!

First, divide your sugar cookie dough into fourths, and then divide one of the parts into half again.  You will have five parts in total.

 

Kneed food coloring into each section – blue, purple, and pink for the larger sections, red for one of the smaller sections, and neutral for the last section. 

After reviewing my galaxy image, I decided that I needed to have several layers to make several layers in the “spin”.  To make three layers, split all the colored balls into thirds.

Now, make three rainbow layers, white, then red, then pink, and purple and blue.  Roll them together so they are smooth stripes, but one layer of dough.  Repeat this with the other two sections, layer the rolled out dough using wax paper and pop them in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm the dough.    

Pin wheel cookies are made by rolling the two or three different color layers starting at the same end, however to get the galaxy “spin” effect, you need to start the layers when the next color starts. To do this, lay the sugar cookie dough layers with the second layer’s neutral starting at the first layer’s red layer like below.

Start rolling!  Once completely rolled, put the roll in the fridge again for 20 minutes to firm up the dough.

Now the fun part!  Start cutting the dough into cookie sized slices.  The first few might not look like a galaxy depending on how smooth your layers where, keep cutting.  

Once cut, put in the oven according to the sugar cookie recipe. 

Enjoy!  Check out my Galaxy Cupcakes too! And happy stargazing!