Peanut Butter Pretzel Delights

That's what I'm going to call them.  It's a twist on an old recipe.  They've been called Peanut Butter Balls in the past sans the pretzels, but these don't quite fit that shape anymore. I wanted people to know what was in them.  Not that it really matters.  Anyone seeing these dives right in not knowing anything else about them other than it's something covered in chocolate.  I got the best compliment Saturday.  A friend picked one up and I asked would you like to know what it is.  She said, "Something covered in chocolate made by you?  It's got to be great!"  Why thank you.  They are.

I got the idea to add pretzels from hungrygnomes' blog.  When I saw the circular pretzels at the grocery store I knew they'd be fun to make.

You can find the recipe for the peanut butter filling in a previous post located here.  Once the filling is made it's just a matter of shaping and dipping.

I did find these easier and a bit faster to make, because I didn't have to roll each and every ball by hand.  They went straight from the cookie scoop to the pretzel then add top pretzel and press slightly.

Once all pretzels were used up I placed sheet of Peanut Butter filled pretzels in freezer for 15 minutes.  Then I removed tray to fridge until I was ready to dip in chocolate.

This year I melted chocolate in microwave.  I usually use a double boiler.  I've been working out at the gym this past month.  It's a good tired, but I just wanted to sit down rather than stand at the stove for an hour.

Tap off a bit of the extra chocolate.

I used the bottom of the fork I was dipping with to make the design on the top.  They looked like they needed a little something.

I dipped 80 of these.  That's all I had enough unbroken pretzels for.  Not bad though since each one needed 2 pretzels.  I have enough peanut butter filling for 20 more.  I'll just make them into balls rather than buy more pretzels.

The only thing I'd do different next time is I'd use maybe half as much filling. The delicious peanut butter filling overpowers the pretzels. They are merely a crunch.  Don't get me wrong these are still delightful.

Silly video my daughter made while I was making these.

Hidden Valley Ranch Pretzels

Had these pretzels at a potluck end of season flag football party.  They were SO good.  Didn't know who brought them, but with my investigative skills I was able to find a recipe online.  About once a year I make up a full batch.  It makes a lot of pretzels.  I make them when there are going to be a lot of people around as they are so good and so not good for you.

Hidden Valley Ranch Pretzels

2 lb. of Pretzels
1 bottle of Orville Redenbacher's Popcorn Butter Oil
1 package of Hidden Valley Original Ranch Dressing Mix (milk recipe)
1 teaspoons lemon pepper (can use garlic powder and/or onion powder if one prefers)

Mix oil and seasonings together. In a large container mix pretzels and oil mixture. (I like to use 2 - 1 gallon ziploc bags.)
 

Allow pretzels to sit for 24 hours, tossing a few times a day.  You'll see all the oil absorbing.

 

Every time you go into the kitchen gave the bags a flip.

 

Where Am I?

I've been busy machine knitting.  You can find me over at my machine knitting blog.  I did take the time last night to make up one of our favorite Christmas snacks.  It's very rich and sweet, so I like to make it when there are going to be a lot of people around to eat it.  That way we won't eat ourselves sick.  Yes, it's that good.

White Christmas Snack Mix


2 cups Chex® wheat, corn or rice cereal
2 cups broken graham crackers
2 cups pretzel sticks
2 cups broken rice cakes
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup craisins
1 cup slivered almonds
1 pound white chocolate baking pieces or baking bars, chopped
1/3 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

In a very large mixing bowl, mix together cereal, graham crackers, pretzels, rice cakes, marshmallows, raisins and nuts; set aside. Line a very large baking sheet with waxed or parchment paper; set aside. Place white chocolate, whipping cream and corn syrup in medium saucepan. Heat over low heat until melted; remove from heat and stir gently until smooth. Stir in extract.
 
Pour warm chocolate mixture over cereal mixture. Toss gently until cereal mixture is coated. Immediately spread onto prepared baking sheet. Cool about 60 minutes or until chocolate is set. Let stand up to 12 hours. Seal in plastic bags for longer storage.
 
Lynne's note:  This I believe was a Chex recipe from the 90's.  This time though *looking over shoulder* I used Crispix cereal.  It has rice on one side and corn on the other.  I never can decided between corn or rice Chex.  The wheat is just too healthy for this mix.  I like to use Teddy Grahams instead of breaking up graham crackers.  When I bought the white chocolate it came in a 12 oz. bag, 4 oz. shy of what the recipe calls for.  I put a tad less cream in.  It worked out fine.  Just as rich and tasty.

Halloween Cake Pops

Or Cake Pops Redux.  My first cake pops were successful in that everyone enjoyed them.  I on the other hand felt there were a few tweaks that could be done to make them more successful in my eyes.  Last time the cake pop dough was very moist and keeping them on the stick was difficult.  Good thing I didn't have any Styrofoam and stood them up as they probably would have all slide down the stick.  This time I decided on a less gooey dough and a smaller dough ball.  I call it dough, because it reminds me of cookie dough in it's consistency.

I baked a Duncan Hines Devil Foods cake in a 9X13 inch pan.  I then crumbled the cake into tiny little bits in a large bowl.  I had bought some store bought chocolate frosting.  I added 1/2 the plastic container to the crumbled up cake bits.  I found no easier way than just sticking my freshly washed hands in the bowl and squishing away.  The amount of frosting I thought was just right.  Not too gooey this time.

After washing the chocolate goo off my hands I got out my cookie scoop and portioned out the dough.  This time I made balls that were more quarter size as Bakerella suggested and I ignored the first time.  I rolled each ball by hand to create a nice smooth round ball.  I thought the smaller ball wouldn't be much of a treat, but it takes me 3 bites to eat one.  So, even someone who put the whole thing in their mouth would find it to be a delicious mouthful.

This time I had the chocolate melted in a double boiler and ready to go when it was time to put the candy sticks in the cake balls.  I dipped the stick in chocolate and then into ball.  The chocolate did pool up around the bottom of stick.  This concerned me that there would be a lump on the bottom of each Cake Pop.  Once I started coating the Cake Pops with melted chocolate I quickly found out it wasn't a concern and covered up quite nicely.

When I dipped Cake Pop in melted chocolate one wants it in the hot chocolate as little time as possible.  I found it faster to use a spoon.  I would dip the pop into the chocolate.  I then rotated it quickly as I pushed the chocolate up on the Cake Pop.  I then pulled the Cake Pop out of the chocolate shook it gently to remove any excess chocolate that might drip down the stick once standing in Styrofoam.  Next I quickly pushed a small piece of pretzel stick into the top of my Cake Pop.

To get a smoother look to the chocolate I ended up adding a small about of Crisco.  This made the chocolate smoother and shinier on my Cake Pops.  When I say small amount I used about 2 T to 1/2 a big of Wilton's Candy Melts.  I find the candy melts in the Wilton section of either Michaels or Joanns.

I had precut the pretzel stick bits to have ready when it came time to push them on top of Cake Pops.  Bakerella had used green Tic Tacs for the top of hers.  For some reason I got it into my head that lime, spearmint whatever flavor green Tic Tacs would be just didn't appeal to me with a chocolate cake pop.  Now pretzels and chocolate is a great combo.

(Only one casualty this year slid down the stick)

I had wanted to draw Jack O Lantern faces on the pumpkins, but the Wilton's FoodWriter Edible Color Makers Fine Tip totally suck.  Suck suck suck.  I know you're saying, "Come on Lynne don't sugar coat this tell us how you really feel."  They did not work at all.  This was all that was available in the stores around me.  I will find my receipt and return these as we found them to be a complete waste of time.  I really don't know what they could be used for. 

Fortunately, the pumpkin look of these Cake Pops was good enough to amaze and treat all our friends to some Halloween fun.

(Do we really need to show the empty stick?  Yum!)