Treat Exchange!

Thanks to the wonderful people who have donated money for the fundraiser. I appreciate your help very much. Whether it's $3, $5, $10 or more than that, any amount is enough to help buy a toy so a kid will have something to open on Christmas morning. If you want to donate, please do! I edited The Blogger Fundraiser post with more information on Genesis Women's Shelter so please check that out! I promise, next year if (when!) I do this again, I'll start much sooner. ;) If you want to see picture proof of the toys I've got already, click here. Toys for Tots shopping will be finished tomorrow! Anything that gets donated tomorrow until the 17th goes towards the Toy Drop at the Genesis Women's Shelter for battered and abused women.

Moving on! Veronica of Another Suburban Mom has organized a treat exchange! I'm a little late getting my post up today so sorry about that. I stayed over too late at my mom's hanging out with her and YB last night then got home and was wiped out so I just went straight to bed. This was a little after 4 AM, lol. Anyway, I'm not a big fan of chocolate. I like dark chocolate because it's not as sweet but that's about it. Something I love? Chocolate covered pretzels! A lot of people don't know just how easy they are to make. So for my treat today, I'm going to put up my chocolate covered pretzels!

Here's what you'll need:

* 12 ounces chocolate chips, any variety!
* 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
* 20 old-time style (thick, not thin) pretzel twists

*Variety of holiday sprinkles and/or chopped walnuts
(Optional ^)

I like to use dark chocolate for mine but I also use a mix of semi-sweet and milk chocolate morsels for other people. My boyfriend hates dark chocolate but loves almost every other type of chocolate. For these in the pictures, they're 3/4 semi-sweet morsels and 1/4 milk chocolate chips. You can also use white chocolate and those turn out really well. Or do the semi-sweet/milk chocolate mix and then drizzle with chocolate.

What you do:

Line two large cookie sheets with waxed paper.

Combine chocolate chips and vegetable shortening in a double boiler stirring until smooth.
If you don't have a double boiler (like me!) you can use a pot of water and then use either another pot or a glass bowl to place inside the pot of warming water. Don't let the water actually boil because if it gets too hot, your chocolate will harden. Also don't add water to thin out the chocolate, that will make it clump and you won't be using it. If you want it to thin out more, add a little more shortening until you're happy with the consistency.


With mine, I like to leave a loop free of chocolate and I use that as a handle to dip the pretzel into the chocolate. If you want the whole pretzel covered in chocolate, use a fork, dip each pretzel into chocolate mixture and gently tap off excess. Place on the wax paper lined cookie sheet.


Sprinkle on whatever toppings you like or just leave plain.

If you want to drizzle with white chocolate, a fork dipped in the white chocolate works well.

Leave pretzels undisturbed until completely set. I put mine in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes.

If you don't want to use pretzel twists, you can use sticks or rods and they work just fine and turn out just as yummy.

Since I made these with my Christmas goodies, I used holiday sprinkles, red sugar and walnuts to decorate my chocolate covered pretzels with. Enjoy the pics!

Happy Friday!!