Monday, September 21, 2009

Chocolate covered Caramel Pretzel Rods

First off, thank you Melody from Cheat Day Cafe for this awesome recipe! I made these as a party favor for my sister's baby shower and they turned out so yummy! The homemade caramel is a must!

Ingredients:
Pretzel rods (recipe makes about 50!)
Whole package of Chocolate candy quick (found at Wal-Mart)
Vanilla candy melts to drizzle (optional)
Caramel ingredients (listed below)

First make a batch of caramel:
1c. Karo syrup
1c. Brown sugar
1c. White sugar
1 cube of butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Put first 5 ingredients in a large sauce pan over medium heat and stir until melted and combined. Bring to a boil and stir for five minutes. Be careful to keep stirring so that it doesn't start to burn on the bottom of the pan. Take caramel off the burner after 5 minutes.Put the hot caramel in a deep container. I used my Pyrex 4 cup measuring cup.
Prepare a couple cookie sheets lined with wax paper.Dip pretzel rod in caramel, about 3/4 of the way and let it drip off any excess caramel. Then lay the rod on the cookie sheet.Repeat with remaining pretzels.
Put cookie sheets in the fridge to help set up caramel.Once caramel is set, lift up each pretzel rod off the wax paper and mold caramel around the rod since it will puddle on the sides as it cools.
Prepare the cookie sheets again with new pieces of wax paper.Melt chocolate in a deep container and dip caramel covered pretzel rods.Place chocolate covered pretzel rods on cookie sheets and place in fridge to set up.
In a zip lock baggie, melt the vanilla candy melts in the microwave. When completely melted, cut a tiny hole in the corner and drizzle the chocolate on the rods.Place back into the fridge to set up.