{"id":435,"date":"2010-06-19T06:52:57","date_gmt":"2010-06-19T13:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiddy.wordpress.com\/?p=435"},"modified":"2010-06-19T06:52:57","modified_gmt":"2010-06-19T13:52:57","slug":"caramel-candy-pretzel-rods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/?p=435","title":{"rendered":"Caramel Candy Pretzel Rods"},"content":{"rendered":"

My\u00a0friend Michelle and I turned her kitchen into a candy factory last night. She’s having 50+ people over tomorrow for her daughter’s birthday\/graduation party. There will be carnitas, homemade guacamole, beans, rice and platters of Caramel Candy Pretzel Rods<\/strong> for dessert. Michelle found a million different recipes online and\u00a0she ended up combining a few. She ran around like a mad woman yesterday gathering the pretzels, toppings, trays, storage containers, chocolate, caramel, etc. She was very grateful to find most of the toppings in the bin food section of the grocery store.<\/p>\n

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Ingredients:
\n<\/strong>14 oz. of Caramel (We ended up using close to 3 lbs. to do 115 with some mistakes)
\n1 tbsp. Water for every 14 ozs. of Caramel
\nCostco size bag of Semi-sweet chocolate chips – used entire bag (a 16 oz. bag would work for one bag of pretzels)
\nPackage of Long Pretzel Rods – FYI – Rold Gold has 10 more rods in a pack compared to Snyder’s (We used 4 bags)
\n1 Cup Mini M&M’s – We used a huge bin bag
\nCrushed Toffee Bits – We used 2 packages of Health bar pieces
\nChopped up peanuts – 1\/2 a produce bag full from the bins
\nSprinkles – buy way more than you think you will need – those go fast.<\/p>\n

I unwrapped a million pieces of caramel (major sticky fingers) and then we got our toppings arranged into containers. Michelle got the trays set up with wax paper and she had read online about using plastic microwaveable\u00a0cups (Dollar Tree find) to microwave the caramel so you could just dip the rods right into the cups. This worked out really well. We did 7 oz. at a time and added 1\/2 tbsp. of water to each cup before microwaving. Once the pretzels were dipped into the caramel, we gave them a twist in the cup and used the edge of the cup\u00a0to help\u00a0cut down on\u00a0excess caramel. We then\u00a0placed them on the wax paper to set – about 10 minutes for each set.<\/p>\n

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Be careful when removing them from the wax paper – if you just pull from one end without twisting, the rods might break.<\/p>\n

We then got the chocolate started. We had the brilliant idea of using the cups to melt the semi-sweet chips too. Tip of the day – don’t ever let choc. touch water if you want it to melt. Yikes – we ruined 14\u00a0oz. of semi-sweet chips. Michelle saved the day – she got a make shift double boiler up and running. We set the heat to medium low and let the melting begin.<\/p>\n

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Jen Curran of Fanny and Jane<\/a> – I have mad respect for your baking skills and patience. Michelle and I “so sucked” at waiting for the chocolate to melt.\u00a0It was torture, LOL.<\/p>\n

We had an assembly line going. Michelle\u00a0had caramel, I had chocolate and one of Michelle’s\u00a0daughter’s had the topping station.<\/p>\n

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The chocolate had to be\u00a0put on the rods with a\u00a0rubber spatula – the bowl wasn’t deep enough for dipping and we found that we used way less with that method. After getting\u00a0them coated, I did the\u00a0hand-off for the toppings.<\/p>\n

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Anyone who tries to tell you that this isn’t sticky\/messy… they are lying.\u00a0My fingers were coated in caramel, chocolate and at one point I had sprinkles stuck to my wrist and shirt. Awesome. Once we got in a groove, we cranked them out like an assembly line.\u00a02.5 hours on my feet coating pretzels was a bit much for my back.\u00a0Towards the end, I sat out and photographed stuff while Michelle and her daughter pressed on. Once the toppings were added to the\u00a0pretzel rods, we put trays of 20 into the fridge for about 10 minutes each to help\u00a0them set. This worked well – minus having every condiment on the counter to make room.<\/p>\n

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They looked like little soldiers lined up on the table. I think they will be a hit at the party.\u00a0 I now have a\u00a0new appreciation for the amount of work that goes into these babies. The original recipe estimated about 20 minutes to make an entire package of pretzels. They were obviously professionals…\u00a0because wow, it probably took me that long to unwrap the caramels, hah!<\/p>\n

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You could customize them in holiday colors – we had grand plans to make some white chocolate ones or to use melted white chocolate chips to drizzle over the tops. When it hit 10:30 PM – that idea flew out the window.\u00a0Michelle mentioned adding pink food coloring\u00a0for a little girl’s\u00a0birthday party or\u00a0Valentine’s\u00a0Day – super cute.<\/p>\n

I know from posting a picture on\u00a0Facebook, that some of you have already made these – any tips to share? What toppings did you use?
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\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My\u00a0friend Michelle and I turned her kitchen into a candy factory last night. She’s having 50+ people over tomorrow for her daughter’s birthday\/graduation party. There will be carnitas, homemade guacamole, beans, rice and platters of Caramel Candy Pretzel Rods for dessert. Michelle found a million different recipes online and\u00a0she ended up combining a few. She … <\/p>\n

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