When I first discovered peanut butter pretzels, it was a fateful encounter at Sprouts. We were picking up some meat for a bar-b-que, but I was starving NOW. Sitting at the check-out was a pre-packaged bag of these little puppies. I thought “pretzels, that’s a good-for-you (kinda) snack; peanut butter? I love peanut butter!!!–SOLD to the hungry girl at the check-out. I made it juuust long enough to pay for them, but not long enough to get us out of the store.
After that bag was finished (2 hours later), that was the sad and unfortunate end of the love affair— until we met again at a Kroger in Dallas a year later. Not only were they in a massive container, but at $5.00 they were cheap and only 140 calories & 7 grams of fat (for a serving of 10). How could I say “no” to saving my money AND my waist-line! Little did I know these little gems were going to become a staple in my household. Even my husband who doesn’t like peanut butter will go through about four handfuls of these in 1 sitting.
One day while munching on some, I noticed a similarity to the pretzel M&M’s (which I’ve only had once… so I don’t know how I came to this conclusion) and wondered how I could recreate the flavor fully. EUREKA: Chocolate dipped! And they would be a perfect addition to a gift for a friend’s birthday a few days later. I set out to get chocolate.
Ps. Hershey’s bars from the dollar store work well and are a lot cheaper than normal grocery store.
The only concern/problem I had was whether or not the chocolate would stay firm once it cooled (and wasn’t in the refrigerator)–if someone knows the trick to this, please comment.
Ingredients: Serves as many as you want–1 Hershey’s bar will easily cover over 30 pretzel nuggets.
- Peanut Butter filled pretzels.
- Chocolate- helps if it’s at room temperature. (About a 1/2 cup of chips, 1 Hershey’s bar, baking chocolate, white chocolate etc. etc.)
What you need:
- A pot of boiling water (pots usually don’t come WITH boiling water, so you might need to make that happen…just sayin’)
- A bowl that is big enough it can rest on top of the pot without touching the water. (see below) I don’t know what this technique is called but it’s used by Chocolatiers when tempering chocolate so it doesn’t burn etc. (?)
- A spoon (normal size–like you’d eat cereal with).
- Either some sort of baking sheet with wax paper on it, or I didn’t have wax paper, so I covered a cutting board in saran-wrap. (this is to put the finished product on to cool and it helps if you can fit it in the fridge.
What to do:
- Boil the water (As afore mentioned),
- Place the bowl on the pot at an angle (so the chocolate is contained in the corner)
- Keep moving the chocolate around so it melts evenly
- Once melted, you can attempt to “dip” the pretzel nugget in the chocolate, but I found it easier to use the spoon and use a spreading action to get it on there.
- Place the “dipped” nugget on your cooling surface.
- Repeat until all desired pretzels are covered–or you run out of chocolate.
- Place in fridge until chocolate is hardened.
Notice the pot in the bowl.
If you’re feeling ambitious and maybe this is a nice party favor or something, try dipping the corner of them in the opposite colored chocolate and/or rolling them in a topping like Graham crackers, sprinkles, peppermint candy (for Christmas) etc.
Sprinkle with love and ENJOY!
Cooking With The Undomestic Housewife 