Frosted Pretzels

I love the flavors of sweet and salty together.  These are about some of the easiest treats to make and everyone loves them.  They are incredibly versatile and can be made for just about every occasion you can think of.  All it takes is two ingredients and then your imagination with the sprinkles.  Here is an assortment showing pretzels for Christmas, Halloween, 4th of July, and a baby shower.  How will you decorate them?!

 

Click here for printable recipe. 

 Post by: Jen

Ingredients:

Almond Bark (often found in the baking aisle next to the chocolate.  I often can find it at Walmart.  You can use candy melts from the craft store as well)

Mini pretzels

wax paper

sprinkles

Directions: 

Break up your almond bark into smaller pieces so as to ensure quicker and more even melting.  Place them in a large non stick pan and melt over LOW heat.

Stir occasionally until everything is melted.  Meanwhile, lay out sheets of wax paper so you are prepared with someplace to put your pretzels. 

Add a handful or two of pretzels at a time.  Carefully fold them into the almond bark so that nothing breaks.  Make sure they are completely coated.

 Using a fork, or skewer or something with prongs that won't scrape your pan,  remove a few pretzels and tap the excess off.  (tap the fork or the skewer against the side of the pan).

 Place the pretzels on the wax paper and separate them so they are not touching.  After you have placed about a dozen on the paper, decorate with your sprinkles of choice.  Make sure that you put your sprinkles on before the almond bark sets.  After sprinkling some pretzels, go back to the pan and continue as above.  Repeat until all the almond bark is gone.  You will have about five or six full 9x13 sheets of wax paper.  Make sure that you have room on your table to store them while they are cooling.

I place my wax paper onto a transferable surface so that I can move the paper if necessary.  Like my plastic dinosaur placemat?!

Here are Halloween pretzels

 Fourth of July or Flag day or Memorial Day pretzels

 Pink or Blue baby shower pretzels

 have fun thinking up other things to do with various holidays,  Just make sure that you use small sprinkles .  It will look better.

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Favorite Halloween Treats for Kids

For some reason, autumn gets me excited to find fun projects to try with my kids.  I love the time we spend cooking together and I love the confidence they gain from performing cooking tasks by themselves--spreading the frosting, adding ingredients, decorating, etc.  I really feel like the kitchen is a great place to develop a child's sense of independence in a safe way (with Mom by their side).     This post is a compilation of some of my favorite Halloween treats that we've created together over the last couple of years.   Happy cooking!    (By the way, don't mind the imperfect pictures.  These are all 100% kid decorated!) 

Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Cheesecake

Easy Spider Cupcakes

 

Centipede Hot Dogs

Halloween Cake Balls


Deviled Egg Eyeballs

Halloween Pretzel Bites


Chocolate Mice

Rice Cake Jack-o-Lanterns

Cute Owl Cupcakes (recipe/directions coming soon)

Wormy Apple Bars


Halloween Chicken Crescent Puffs


Mud and Worm Cupcakes


Bugs in a Blanket

"Bloody" Raspberry-Grape Punch



Witch Hat Treats in the Crockpot

Scarecrow Cookies


Stromboli Snake


Creepy Apple Smiles


Finger Dip


Mummy Hot Dogs


Spooky Drinks


Random Assortment of other Halloween Treats



Green Monster Split Pea Soup





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Cooking with Kids (Halloween): Halloween-y Cake Balls

Cake balls are a new found indulgence of mine. They're tasty, sophisticated, fun, and truly simple to make. I personally like the flavor of the Oreo truffle balls even better, but these are slightly less sweet and have the color and the cool factor going for them! My kids had a blast making these with me and are now begging to make them for every holiday. The only problem I see with these is how addictive they are!

The ingredients:

1 box Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix, baked as per package directions

1 jar Duncan Hines frosting, cream cheese or vanilla (or an 8-oz. pkg. of cream cheese)

Melting chocolate in various colors (I got mine from the craft store) OR white chocolate chips

Decorating gels, black, green

3-4 Tbs. Crisco

lollipop sticks (from the craft store)

Bake the red velvet cake as per directions on box. Allow to completely cool.

When cake is cooled, use your fingers or fork to crumble the cake until it is nothing but fine crumbs. My children happen to think that crumbling the cake is a job that is particularly humorous and exciting.

When cake is crumbled, combine the entire jar of frosting with the entire crumbled cake.

Mix until cake and frosting cling together.

Now using your best cookie dough skills, form the cake/frosting mix into 1-inch balls and place on wax paper.

(Kids also really like this job). When balls are all formed, place in freezer for 1-2 hours (or more). You could technically skip the freezing, but unfrozen cake balls are VERY difficult to work with and tend to fall apart very easily while dipping. I highly recommend being patient and freezing them.

When cake balls are frozen and you're ready to start dipping, put 1 cup of melting chocolate (or chocolate chips) in a microwaveable bowl and add 1-1/2 teaspoons of Crisco. **The Crisco makes the consistency of the melted chocolate easier to work with and decreases the setting time significantly.**

Place in microwave for 90 seconds, stopping it every 30 seconds to stir well. Your chocolate should now look like this.

Now on to the fun part.

Stick a lollipop stick in each ball (another good kid job), then immerse completely into the melted chocolate. Use a spoon to help to evenly distribute the chocolate over the entire ball.

My kids also liked helping with this step, but they may need a little more supervision, especially in making sure the entire cake ball is evenly covered.

After dipping, set the wet cake ball lollipops gently onto a piece of wax paper and allow to set before moving.

After the chocolate has set, use the decorating gels and decorate as desired. The gel will eventually harden, but it will take a few hours.

Ellie was very proud of her ghost with hair!

Enjoy!

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