Vegan/no bake/
How I fell in love with chocolate covered pretzels, a love story.
Pretzels are like people they come in different shapes and sizes. They can be straight, twisted, round or loopy. They also come braided and in the shape of letters. They can be sweet, salty or both.
My pretzel story begins like a lot of consumer stories. It was warm Saturday afternoon and I was at the super market doing my weekly shopping, I was walking down aisle number 9 when I saw the pretzels on the top shelf on super special. I think you should know I am not a pretzel fan, I think they are boring (not the doughy kind, I love them) and a little on the dry side but they were on special and I can’t resist something on sale. So I bought not one packet of pretzel sticks but TWO, because, let’s face it, you can’t have too much of something you don’t need if it’s a big enough bargain. I thought someone will surely snack on these or I’ll put them out with a dip when people come over…
No one in the family even noticed them and the opportunity to use them NEVER came up… so now I’m moving house (which is why I have hardly been posting) and I have packed away most of my kitchen stuff and the house is full of boxes and it’s a mess and I find it a bit much and when things get that way, I get cravings for something sweet, (surprise, surprise) but I can’t make anything (and I am secretly grateful because I have been watching my sugar intake ) and the craving is STRONG, so I open the pantry door for the millionth time and I finally notice the pretzels that have been staring back at me a million times and I think hmmmmm surely I can do something with this…
Poor old pretzels, I really do look down on them. I mean, what else can you name on earth that you can dip in chocolate and still think, meh? It’s like, in the dictionary, under boring, a picture of pretzels.
But being from the Middle East, my motto when it comes to fixing things is ‘more!’ So then it hit me, the solution was to dip it in chocolate and then something else and viola! So I put my creative hat on and ran to my favourite shop: Scoop (no it’s not an ad I wish it were)… I bought a few things that I thought would keep it healthyish, and sure enough I came up with an exciting new treat which looks good too. After 20 minutes in the freezer, it was time for the taste test and what can I say, it was love at first bite. Crispy, sweet, salty and delicate all at once, these little beauties have loads of flavour, are easy to make and a great brunch idea or snack
They say clothes maketh the man (or they did when verbs ended with ‘eth’) and dressing up boring straight old stick Mr pretzel in a brand new coat of chocolate and other goodies transformed him into Mr Irresistible. He didn’t get to chill in the fridge in peace for too long I can tell you. This new love affair comes guilt free (and how many love affairs can you say that about?) They don’t contain a lot of chocolate but are dressed up in a healthy hibiscus and blue berry granola, turmeric, orange and pistachio granola, cocoa hazelnut granola, shredded coconut, crushed almonds, crushed pistachios and cocoa nibs.
They were heavenly!
The only bad news about these bad boys is you can’t leave them alone and while they are easy to make they’re also time consuming. Still, while you’re dipping them in chocolate and rolling them in goodies and humming ‘Leader of the Pack’ to yourself, you can enjoy the anticipation of what’s to come, and isn’t that half the fun?
Ingredients
1 (80g) packet of pretzel sticks
200g melted chocolate (of your choice)
½ cup of each of the topping above or of your choice.
There will be left overs, I just put them all in a bowl and poured melted chocolate on top and made them into balls, delicious!
Method
Melt chocolate, pour into a glass, and glass in hot water without letting the chocolate get wet.
Line a tray with baking paper and rip another piece of baking paper and place it on the counter. Create a production line, filling plates with the various toppings.
Dip pretzel stick in chocolate covering the stick ¾ of the way. Let the chocolate drip back in the cup until it stops dripping.
Place the pretzel stick on the extra bit of baking paper on the counter and repeat with another 5 pretzels. If you try to dip them in the topping straight after you’ve dipped them in the chocolate the topping won’t stick, it will fall straight off. I found this process allows the chocolate to cool down a little and helps the topping to stick.
I found 6 pretzels to be the magic number to work with.
You begin with the first pretzel you dipped in the chocolate and work down in the order you dipped them.
I found there were two ways that worked best. I preferred method B.
Method A: Hold pretzel with one hand and pick up a handful of topping with the other and sprinkle on top of pretzel while rotating.
Method B: Place chocolate covered pretzel on top of the topping and bury with the remainder of the topping, then place in the tray covered with baking paper. Place tray in the freezer and just put all the pretzels in there.
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