This simple chocolate covered pretzels treat is perfect to make with your kids, 3 ingredients, and tasty! No “Pinterest Mom” skills needed!
It’s the holidays y’all and I know you are busy! From parties, to shopping, and everything in between, the whole point of Christmas can get a little lost and leave you feeling run ragged! I don’t know if Jesus would want us celebrating his birthday the way it shows up on an American’s social media feed. I do think He would want us spending time with our families. Maybe even doing things that are a little special.
I literally think the words “a little special” and here comes that wannabe perfectionist tendency creeping on in with all of these grand holiday ideas that we are going to check off the list this year. Why not right? I am finally a stay-at-home mom for the first time. We should be able to do something a little more special. I should be able to put in more effort this year. We should have the time. I should have the energy. We should have the money saved…ugh.
Those “shoulds” y’all…I let a couple get inside my little brain, next thing I know I am “should-ing” all over the place. They rapidly get me playing a mind game that I want no part of. You start to compare, you start to feel guilty, then you start to feel inadequate. I can guarantee you that Jesus definitely doesn’t want us feeling that way during his birthday season!
Wooo…that got a little depressing for a post about chocolate covered pretzels and some Jesus, now didn’t it?! But all of that to say, let’s remember what the holiday season is about. You don’t have to blow your budget, spoil your kids, or home make from scratch a gingerbread farming compound complete with livestock in Santa hats in cross fenced pastures for rotational grazing, irrigation pivots, and hard red winter wheat to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or to make your family feel loved and special!
Simple Christmas Traditions
We have a few very basic Christmas traditions that we do each year. The simpler the tradition, the better for us. If the tradition is super simple it is much more likely that we can keep up doing it each year, hence the word tradition. It is also something that at least myself of my husband love to do each year as well. If one of us loves to do it, it will more of a priority and likely to happen.
We decorate a Christmas tree, set up the kids nativity scene, make store bought gingerbread houses, and look at Christmas lights several times. Most years we do a Christmas parade, or do a day trip to the Gaylord Texas to see the ice sculptures.
Beyond that, it’s a lot of pajama time, family Christmas gatherings, reading the Christmas story and drinking hot chocolate…I mean a lot of hot chocolate. When it hits December 1, my kids want hot chocolate, and they want it every night if I let them. And lot of the time, I do let them have it…because I like it just as much as they do! Is there a more perfect simple snack to go along with hot chocolate than some chocolate covered pretzels and some hot chocolate spoons?
Why I Love Making Holiday Chocolate Covered Pretzels and Spoons
- It’s easy with 3 ingredients, chocolate, pretzels/spoons, and fun toppings
- You don’t have to spend a lot for it to be fun
- It is simple enough for your kids to help
- These can be made and consumed quickly for instant gratification and low attention spans
- It doesn’t leave you cleaning up 50 ingredients or your kitchen filthy
- They look super cute and fancy for minimal effort on your part
- Store them in an airtight container and they will last all holiday season, but you better make a lot. Ours lasted a week and a half…if that!
Ingredients Needed for Holiday Chocolate Covered Pretzels and Hot Chocolate Spoons
- Milk Chocolate Almond Bark
- Pretzels, Any Kind
- Toppings, Sprinkles, Marshmallows, Chocolate chips, etc.
- Plastic Spoons
You will also need a sheet pan and some parchment paper.
Get whatever kind of almond bark you’d like. We are a milk chocolate family, but wouldn’t turn our nose up to a white chocolate dipped pretzel either!
This year we got the big fat pretzel rods and loved them! If we do regular pretzel twists or mini twists, we only dip half. The almond bark is pretty thick and we like some salty to our sweet!
We used different sprinkles for our toppings as well as some mini marshmallows. Chocolate chips are a good option here as well, or peanut butter chips…yum! Just use what you have or like.
My 2 recommendations a on sprinkles are that 1. colored sanding sugar does not show up the best on the brown chocolate, but it does taste the best in my opinion. This might do best on some white chocolate bark. 2. Some of those really cute snowflake or ball sprinkles are hard on your teeth! I won’t use those next time. We will just have to be a little more boring.
Instructions for Chocolate Pretzels and Hot Chocolate Spoons
Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Line your cookie sheet pan with parchment paper and set up all your pretzels and toppings for dipping how you’d like. Depending on your kids age, this is definitely easier with one adult per kid helping so chocolate doesn’t make it to the light fixtures! It was just me on this one, so I just stood in between them at the island.
Heat your almond bark or whatever chocolate coating you are using in a bowl per its instructions. Think about the bowl you are planning to use and how it will accommodate you all dipping in it. For my almond bark, you heat for a minute, then stir. Heat in 15 second increments stirring after each until the chocolate is melted completely.
It is easier to dip your pretzels first. We dipped probably about 6 large pretzel rods at a time, placed them on our parchment lined cookie sheet pan, then sprinkled our sprinkles on top before the chocolate began to harden again.
To harden the almond bark chocolate fully, put your sheet pan into the freezer for about 5 minutes, then remove. At this point, they are hardened and ready to be moved into an airtight container.
Once we finished the bag of pretzels, we moved on to the plastic spoons.
Hot Chocolate Spoons
The spoons are so easy! Dip them in your melted almond bark, make sure the front and back are coated, then put on your parchment lined sheet pan. Add marshmallows on top, sprinkles, or whatever sounds like it would be good in your hot chocolate!
Put the spoon filled sheet pan into your freezer again for about 5 minutes. The chocolate will be hardened after that and your spoons are ready to use, or store in an airtight container!
Please be advised…this will not take the place of your chocolate milk mix if you drink mugs of it the way that we do! It is just a fun addition that gives it a little extra chocolate flavor, a spoon for extra stirring, and a way for us to reasonably ration our mini marshmallows between our mini t-rexes! If you know, you know.
Try them out and let us know what you think! If you loved this simple little snack, check out some of our other snacks and appetizers that are a perfect super simple treat through the holiday season…because everybody loves a good dip!
- Stupid Simple Bacon Cheddar Ranch Dip
- The Best Snacking Mild Salsa
- Chuys Creamy Jalapeno Recipe (Yummy Tex-Mex Dip Copycat!)
- Cranberry Salsa, A Holiday Goodie! (Coming Soon)
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