Home Savvy

My husband and I attended a super fun baby shower this weekend for a neighbor we LOVE (really… I would say that whether I thought she would read this or not… ha ha)!  Though I always shop from a new Mom’s registry to make sure she gets what she truly needs, I also like to bring something personal or just darn cute!  For this shower, I decided I wanted to make a yummy treat and chose chocolate covered pretzels.

As you can see, she is having a girl!  Aren’t these adorable?  Chocolate covered pretzels make a cute and thoughtful gift for any occasion and…. bonus… they are delicious!  I just love the combination of salty and sweet!  I will be very honest with you now and let you know that I was in a BIG rush while making the pretzels this weekend and did not have time to take decent photographs.  Therefore, this is going to be a rough tutorial and lacks photos.  I make these pretzels regularly though and will add to the tutorial over time.  If you want to make these soon and have any questions, e-mail me!

What You Will Need:

• Pretzel Molds to fit your occasion (Michaels has a variety for many occasions.  You can find examples here).  At Michael’s, they are $1.99 per mold.  If you are going to make lots of pretzels, buy a few molds as you have to let the chocolate sit in the mold long enough to harden before you can make more.  
• Large Pretzel Sticks/Rods from any grocery store
• Chocolate of Your Choice.  I used both white and milk chocolate chips for this batch.  For your colored sections of the pretzel sticks you can either use food coloring to dye white chocolate or buy pre-colored chocolate from a craft store.
• Microwave safe bowls for melting and pouring chocolate
• A tool for getting chocolate into small spaces of the molds.  I have used both a pastry brush (like a paint brush) and a disposable piping bag to fill the trays.  Pick what you are comfortable working with!  Both work well.
• Something to wrap your pretzels in.  Plastic wrap works, but my favorite option is actual pretzel bags you can find at craft stores (Michaels).  This is a picture of a few of my pretzels in pretzel bags.  They are perfect for wrapping the pretzels individually and come with silver twist ties.  If you want to pretty these up for a gift, purchase ribbon to tie the bags with or charms to put on the twist ties.
• Something to transfer your pretzels in.  Michaels makes a box specifically for pretzels:

I have also found that bread loaf boxes are the PERFECT size for packing these pretzels.  I have even shipped Valentines Day pretzels in these red loaf boxes I purchased at World Market:

Here is a loaf box with just a few pretzels in it.  It really is the perfect size!  I fits about 30 wrapped pretzels.  If you aren’t planning to make that many, just put some tissue paper in the bottom to take up space and layer the pretzels over the tissue.

1. Melt your chocolate slowly and carefully to avoid burning.  You can use a double boiler OR I microwave my chocolate on 30% power.  Stop the microwave every 20 seconds or so (after the first 1 minute) to stir.  The chocolate is ready to use once it is smooth and lump free.  Do not melt all of your chocolate at one time or you will have to constantly reheat it.  I made all of my white chocolate pretzels first and then all of the milk chocolate.  Therefore, to start, I melted my pink chocolate and white chocolate down to start.
2. Use a pastry brush, piping bag with tip, or a ziplock bag with the corner cut off to fill the sections of your mold you would like to feature with color.
3. Then, pour the main chocolate you are using (white in my case) over the colored chocolate until you have almost filled the mold.  Leave about 1/8 inch of space at the top of the mold to allow your chocolate to be displaced by the pretzel.  It is important that you pour the second color of chocolate into the mold soon after pouring the colored chocolate.  If the colored chocolate hardens before you pour the remaining chocolate in, it will not adhere to the pretzel well.  These molds are also very pretty with just one solid color (white, milk, or dark) chocolate if you do not want to do the detail work with color.
4. Push the preztels into the chocolate while it is still warm.  I like to have my pretzels lined up so as much of the pretzel is covered in chocolate as possible.  This gives me pretzel in every bite of chocolate!  You will see the molds are built so your pretzel will be about 1/2 covered in chocolate and perfectly line up to lay in the chocolate and hang 1/2 way out of the mold.  Do not push the pretzel down so deep in the chocolate that it touches the bottom of the mold.  You want to see all chocolate when you look at the pretzel from the front.
5. When I am making multiple batches of pretzels, I place the whole tray with pretzels sticking out of it on a cookie sheet and then into the refrigerator or freezer to speed up the process of hardening the chocolate.
6. Once the chocolate is completely solid again, twist the mold slightly (like you would an ice tray to remove ice) to loosen the chocolate from the mold.  Then, lift the pretzels out of the mold using the pretzel handle.
7. Wrap and/or box your pretzels and they are ready to go!

I individually wrapped this batch for people to eat at the baby shower or take home as favors.  I then transported them in a pretty bread box.  I have also made these pretzels in the past for another dear friend’s baby shower and displayed them in a bowl with tissue paper at the shower.