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.