Milk & White Chocolate dipped Pretzels

While I was scrolling through and reading the entries on one of my favourite blogs, Cupcakes and Cashmere, recently I came across this idea of taking pretzel rods and dipping them into chocolate and sprinkles. It's a very simple concept that I'd never thought about before, but the result is a very effective and very tasty dessert. A while ago I tasted the pretzel M&M's, which were delicious, but I'd never thought of trying to recreate this effect until I saw this recipe. When I told people that I was going to make these chocolate dipped pretzels for my niece's 1st birthday I got a lot of odd looks and 'but pretzels with chocolate?!' comments, but despite the oddity, this combination actually does work! Trust me and try them. You won't regret it! :)

You will need pretzels that are bigger than usual. I had a bit of trouble finding large pretzel rods, but luckily the day before the birthday I managed to find some in a little deli. They probably weren't as big as I had imagined (or as the ones used on Cupcakes and Cashmere) but they did the job and still looked effective. I chose to use both milk and white chocolate to dip the pretzels in, just to have a couple of different options. I'm sure you could use dark chocolate, but I'm not a big fan personally, and plus it was enough work with the two chocolate. I melted the chocolate (seperately) by placing it in a saucepan and then placing that saucepan in a larger one half filled with boiling water over medium heat on the stove. Once the chocolate had melted I then dipped the tips of the pretzels into the chocolate.

I let the excess chocolate drip off the sticks and let the chocolate dry a touch so it wasn't so runny before I went on to the next step. I felt that if I rushed it and rolled the tips in the sprinkles too soon they would end up a little messier than I would have liked, and wouldn't have that nice round shape.
I had my various colours of sprinkles ready on plates before I started. I felt these colours suited the theme of the birthday party, which was a sort of garden tea theme, calling for more pastel colours. Here they are laid out on the plates.

So once the pretzels had been coated in chocolate (either milk or white) I then rolled the pretzel ends in the sprinkles until they were nicely covered.

Once I'd done this I found it was easiest to lay the finished pretzel sticks on a cake cooling rack to dry completely before I transferred them into a storage container. They ended up being a hit at the party though. The kids loved the bright colours and were attracted to these straight away (and they ate them all up) and the adults really liked the idea too, with the flavour combination of the salty with the sweet. They took a little bit of effort, as you could really only do a couple at a time, but they were definitely worth it in the end.

Recipe Source:
Found on Cupcakes and Cashmere
Chocolate-dipped Pretzels