CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS

These pretzels were not originally in my plans for holiday snacks.  My husband likes to snack on pretzels in the evenings and I bought a case of organic pretzels to try them out.  This was an attempt to fall in line with the "real food" direction we are going for the rest of our diet.  I figured if he was going to eat something like pretzels - they should be the best quality ingredients we could find.  The pretzels were good, but my husband was not crazy about them as they have very little salt on them.

The brand of organic pretzels I used is "Newman's Own".  They provide a lot of other good organic products out there.  I'm delighted to see items from this brand at our local Publix.  Earthfare also carries some, but if all else fails - there is always the internet!  I ordered these from Amazon.

I decided I needed to do something with this large quantity of pretzels we now had on hand.  I had never made chocolate covered pretzels. I was surprised to hear it is recommended to add shortening to chocolate chips in order to do this!  I get that this is necessary to thin the chocolate down and also allow it to harden after dipping, but I couldn't bring my self to add shortening to the recipe for my chocolate covered pretzels.  It just seems unnecessarily bad for you, so I proceeded without it.  I used Ghirardelli's Milk Chocolate Chips.  (I would like to try this with the organic chocolate chips I can get at Earthfare, but I have not done this yet.)  It's easy to melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler over the stove. 

 

The chocolate is rather thick (because I refused to add the shortening), so dipping just 2/3 of the pretzel works out pretty good.  It also makes this process really easy because the undipped part of the pretzel serves as a sort of "handle".  This is much easier than trying to cover the entire pretzel, and trust me - there is plenty of chocolate covering the 2/3 of the pretzel (since the chocolate is so thick).

Immediately after dipping, I laid the pretzels down on cookie sheets lined with waxed paper (UPDATE 6-1-2015: I found that parchment paper works better as the wax on the waxed paper tends to melt when the hot chocolate touches it and it sticks to the cookie sheets.)  Next I sprinkled the pretzels with sea salt.   I found I can do about five in a row, and then sprinkle them with a bit of sea salt and the chocolate is still warm enough to easily take the sea salt.  NOTE - because these pretzels have so little salt - the sea salt is a nice addition and creates a nice contrasting flavor with the chocolate.  If you are working with a well salted pretzel to begin with - the sea salt might be a little much.

I put them in the garage to cool quickly and allow the chocolate to harden (I think the chocolate would have taken forever to harden if I had just let them sit at room temperature). Ultimately, I stored them in the refrigerator a tin with waxed paper (or parchment paper) between layers.  I'm honestly not sure how they would do sitting out at room temperature.  For us, this is a good thing, because if they were sitting out and easily accessible all the time, they wouldn't last a day in our house!

I'm not under the illusion that these are "good" for you, but in my mind, if you are going to splurge and have a sweet snack occasionally - use better ingredients like organic pretzels (a good way to avoid GMOs which are typical in any food with made from wheat), good quality chocolate (and possibly organic chocolate), and sea salt (instead of regular table salt).