Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Reese's pretzels

December 29-30, 2012


Can a person (or blog) have too many chocolate-peanut butter recipes? I think not. (Even if it were true, surely Hannah shall have to take her punishment before I.) Because I tried another one for our nearly-new-year vegan picnic. I found this simple idea on Sweet and Sour Fork: whip together peanut butter and sugar, sandwich it between pretzels, and dip in dark chocolate.

K pointed us towards some excellent gluten-free pretzels and, of course, the best dark chocolate is dairy-free so my batch were vegan, gluten-free and, I hoped, totally picnic-friendly. Happily/sadly, I met a nice gent at the party who is allergic to peanuts. Damn. A new lesson in mindfulness. After cluelessly waving them under his nose once (thankfully he wasn't anaphylactic!), I kept them well away from our conversation and they found some other fans. They're sweet and salty, smooth and crunchy - little short of an allergy would hold me back from them.


Reese's pretzels
(based on a recipe found at Sweet and Sour Fork,
which has a history on Two Tiny Kitchens and foodaphilia)

1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon margarine
3/8 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup icing sugar
225g pretzels (I used 3 x 75g bags of Eskal brand)
200g dark chocolate

Whisk together the peanut butter, margarine and sugars until well mixed and fluffy. Refrigerate the mixture for an hour or so to help firm it up.

Line a large tray with baking paper. When the peanut butter mixture is ready, use a small spoon to dollop a couple teaspoons-worth onto a pretzel; sandwich it up with another pretzel and rest it on the tray. Repeat with the remaining mixture and pretzels - I think I made about 80! Store the pretzel sandwiches in the freezer.

Gently melt the chocolate, then take it off the heat to cool for 5 minutes. Retrieve the pretzels and dredge half of each one through the chocolate (see picture up top), setting them back on the tray when done. Return the pretzels to the fridge or freezer until you're ready to eat them.

16 comments:

  1. Oh wow, what a great idea. They look delicious!

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    1. Hi Theresa - I reckon they'd need fridge (or even freezer) storage for sure where you are. Even down here they got decidedly melty!

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  2. Replies
    1. Hi Bella! I only wish I could take create for it. :-)

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  3. divine. imagine them with cashew butter! yum-o...

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    1. Hi Lucy - you're right, the nut butter is especially ripe for tinkering with.

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  4. Aaaaah! Ahahahahaha! I love you, Cindy. I saw this title in Google Reader and would have shrieked out loud with excitement, but for the spoon of half-Nutella-half-peanut-butter that was in my mouth at the time (I'm really not joking. But I bet you knew I wasn't joking.)

    My dream is for the Take Five bar to be de-dairyfied, and this is almost it. Hurrah for you, Cindy. Hurrah. For. You.

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    1. Well, now I'm googling Take Five bars and wondering what I've been doing with my life, Hannah. And browsing USA Foods in the hope that they might sell them (it seems not). I'll just have to hope that the dark chocolate makes this recipe better anyway. ;-)

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  5. Sound yummy but indeed peanut butter and chocolate can be terrible for some - Sylvia's peanut allergy has stopped peanut butter baking in our house - though I still love a peanut butter sarnie! Yet it is hard to take into account all food intolerances - if you tried to accommodate everyone in everything you make you might just end up a breathatarian :-)

    sorry we missed the picnic and all the yummy food on offer

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    1. I'm sorry you missed it too, Johanna! Do you eat other nut/seed butters with Sylvia?

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  6. That is a pretty great idea. I'm so not a fan of dipping things in chocolate, though - someone needs to invent some magical dip/instant dry machine. Look great!

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    1. Matt, I am totally with you on this - love eating chocolate-coated stuff but hate making it. The pick-it-up-and-drag-it-through half-dip is slightly less annoying than, say, trying to evenly coat truffles.

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  7. Good lord, these sound incredible! A pile of them might just have to be my birthday treat this year ;)

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    1. AA, I reckon they're perfect birthday food. :-)

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  8. Oh.
    My.
    GOD.

    And no, you can NEVER have too many chocolate-peanut-butter recipes. I checked.

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    1. Hehe thank you for verifying, Anna. I'll keep working on some more!

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