Valentine's Day Chocolate Pretzels

Sometimes things are so simple and easy, they must be done. I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day but I do love chocolate and sweet and salty things (see 16, 17, 18 for card ideas for me). This treat is so easy, it's comical. So I wasn't sure if it was something suitable for the blog, who doesn't already know to melt chocolate, dip pretzels and consume in bulk for ultimate happiness?

What makes this interesting is the chocolate melting and the sprinkles. So basically the ingredients. I recently saw this article headlined about how to easily melt chocolate. As someone who has burned chocolate in the microwave many a time (I don't understand, sometimes it works!), I was excited to read about the secret.

 

This is a brilliant hack. We're bringing the hair dryer into the kitchen. And using it to melt chocolate. Brilliant! Especially since I'm about to be without a microwave for a couple months, I need all the melting hacks I can find.

 

The second ridiculous thing is the sprinkles. I've accumulated a fair number of festive sprinkles. So many, in fact, that I even know their different official names like crystals, nonpareils, jimmies, they're all in my brain space. And now they're all on their own row of my spice rack. I spent just a little too much time organizing my spice rack/Lazy Susan and removing spices that I would never use (such as Pizza Seasoning) to make room for my sprinkles. Among the Christmas crystals, Halloween nonpareils and birthday nonpareils are Valentine's confetti (no, I didn't put these in order by holiday....).

 

After blow-drying the chocolate to a nice warm mixture, pretzels are carefully dipped and then dabbled in the bowl of sprinkles. Laid to rest on wax paper, allow the chocolate to cool and set. If you're fancy, you can bag these up in festive treat bags and give out as a pseudo healthy gift. If you're like me, you can just go "one for you, three for me" or eat them all straight away.

However you decide to share these, remember to love yourself above someone else (unless it's your mom, definitely love your mom first).

Recipe

• Desired number of pretzels (sticks, wands, traditional, whichever)
• Semi-sweet chocolate morsels or baking chips
• Festive sprinkles

1. Using a hair dryer, microwave or double boiler, melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl. Allow the chocolate to melt completely, stirring constantly until smooth. 
2. Carefully dip the pretzels into the chocolate. Allow the excess chocolate to drip off before dipping in sprinkles.
3. Lay the pretzels on a sheet of wax paper.
4. Allow to set/dry/cool before bagging, serving or eating.