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[mslaynie.livejournal.com]

I wanted to give a gift of chocolate this year, just something small to let people know I was thinking of them. I thought chocolate covered pretzels would be a nice idea, simple and yummy.

The setup...
I discovered several things that made this go nicely. I used a heating pad turned on high under a divided glass dish to melt chocolate chips in 3 flavors: white chocolate, milk chocolate, and semi-sweet chocolate. I covered 2 boards in saran wrap (pink, since it's what I had on hand) so I could alternate dipping and freezing to help the chocolate set up. I dipped them all, then drizzled chocolate in contrasting colors/flavors using a ziploc bag with the tip snipped off.

Things to take note of...
There are several things to keep in mind when dipping pretzels. Water will make the chocolate seize up, so dry your utensils carefully. Also, make sure the chocolate in the drizzling bags is thoroughly melted. If you don't, small bits will plug up the opening, and when you squeeze harder to make the chocolate come out, it will find another way out- the bag will rupture, spilling huge globs of chocolate all over your pretty pretzels.

I considered this a quality control (QC) concern, and happily sacrificed my blobby pretzels to the QC goddess. In other words, I ate them.

Finally, pay close attention to pretzel length. I found myself dipping broken pretzels before I realized they were shorter than the others. These also got eaten, usually by my husband. By the end of the evening, he was telling me that I needed to pay closer attenion to the pretzel length, because he couldn't eat any more mistakes.

The photos...

In progress.


In progress.


They're all done, and packaged for giving.

x-posted to farble & my personal journal.