DIY 3 Ingredient Mint Chocolate Covered Pretzels [Gluten-Free]

Are you tempted by store bought chocolate covered pretzels? Or wheat-laden white chocolate mint Pretzel Thins? Satisfy your sweet tooth with these easy copy-cat gluten-free pretzels. You may already have all the ingredients on hand. These salty and sweet treats are easy to make for Christmas. Or just because.

Ingredients

Roughly a handful of each:

Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Gluten-free pretzels (we used Glutino brand from Meijer, but any brand will do)

Peppermint candies

If you like recipes that don't require measuring things, check out this 2 ingredient breakfast recipe.

Supplies

Nonstick pan

Spatula

Wax or parchment paper

Hammer (or rolling pin)

Directions

Melt a handful of chocolate chips in a nonstick skillet. To avoid burning the chocolate, stir regularly and heat until most of the chips have melted, but there are a few lumps left.

Remove from heat and keep stirring while the last lumps melt.

Unwrap the peppermint candies, put in a bag, and relieve your holiday stress. Smash the mints with a hammer. (You can smash the mints while they’re still individually wrapped, but  it’s harder to unwrap smashed mints.)

Lay out some wax paper or parchment paper.

Stir the pretzels into the chocolate to coat, then lay the coated pretzels on the paper.

Sprinkle with crushed mints.

Try to wait till the chocolate is hardened to eat the pretzels.

Who am I kidding, eat several while they are melty and warm!

After cooling and hardening, store in a cookie tin by lifting the paper, pretzels and all, and placing in a tin. Or you can store in a plastic bag.

Tips

Don’t make a big batch. You’ll be tempted to eat them all.

After a few days, the pretzels can get soft.

Want more chocolate recipes? Check out this flourless chocolate cake recipe, which can also be minty.

Merry Christmas!

5 Gluten Free Quarantine Baking Recipes I Love

During my state's "stay at home" time (which is now being phased out) I have been baking more.

 

Rather than a giving detailed recipes, this is a round-up of foods I've made and links to the original recipe.
Note: I eat gf to keep my belly happy. All 5 recipes are gluten free. Some of these recipes are also paleo, dairy free, nut free or refined sugar free. That's just an added bonus.

Crepes for tortillas

Recently, I'd had enough with round store-bought place-mats marketed as gluten free tortillas. So maybe they are not that bad, but I have braces right now and I can't chew cardboard. My mom suggested I try using some homemade gluten-free crepes for tortillas. If you Google "tortilla crepes" you'll find that tortillas are often used as dessert crepes, but I reversed that substitution, using crepes as tortillas.

The first time I tried it, the crepes were soft and bendable, but oddly sweet. Omitting the vanilla in the crepes fixed the flavor. These crepes are more oily that typical tortillas due to the coconut oil they are cooked in, but I'm not complaining. They are bendable, but I'm not gonna lie, they do sometimes crack because they are so soft, not because they are brittle.

Flourless Chocolate Cake {Gluten Free}

I love this recipe! Sometimes I have looked up a delicious dessert only to find it called for a type or brand of gluten free flour I had never heard of, did not have, or could not find in my area. Who wants to pay shipping and handling? I find it hard to justify buying and trying every gluten-free package out there. It is expensive, especially because gluten-free foods are not created equal! I never know if it is going to be dry, crumbly, and/or flavored funny!

This dish has none of those problems. It is a dense, moist chocolate cake, almost like a brownie. It is perfect for friends or relatives who are not gluten-free. There are no pricey, gluten-free flours and gums (xanthan gum or guar gum) in this dish. You or your friends do not have to buy a big bag of some ingredient that you will only use once to make a gluten free dish! This is also great for novices like my mom and I were when we found this recipe. 

You can make a basic chocolate cake, or a mint chocolate cake, or a cream cheese marble. Plus, you can make it dairy free if you use dairy free chocolate chips. I've used baking chocolate chips that are not "certified" df but don't have any dairy in the ingredients. 

Finally, you can make brownie bites in mini or standard size muffin cups! (Line the cups with paper and bake for less time.) Spooning batter into muffin tins takes more time so we usually just make the cake.

Batter:

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or df chips).

*Variation: dark chocolate and mint chips (2 in 1 package from Nestle)

1/2 cup butter, or if you want to make it dairy free, coconut oil.

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 eggs                

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup cocoa

Directions: