Homemade Christmas! Peppermint Chocolate-Covered Pretzels

 

I absolutely love Holidays.

Christmas, especially. I feel SO incredibly fortunate to have such a rock solid family that makes the holidays so special. 

They are the greatest, seriously.

And friends, too! Which is why I decided to make them all delicious Christmas gifts!

I think homemade Christmas gifts from friends are the best, and Colin and I are lucky to have friends who really value things like time and energy and creativity in gifts over the dollar amount (...hopefully it's not only because they are all broke students like we are ;)).

Plus, everyone knows the best kind of homemade Christmas gifts are the ones you can EAT.

As much as I love cookies, I really wanted to do something a little different - and something maybe not SO heavy as a sugar cookie.

I decided on Peppermint Chocolate Covered Pretzels. 

We found these adorable 'holiday shaped' pretzels and world market which I knew would be perfect.

They are shaped like trees and bells and stars! Isn't that so cute? I think they are great. 

Peppermint chocolate covered pretzels are so simple: Really, all you have to do is melt coconut oil and chocolate chips on a double broiler on the stove, add a few drops of peppermint oil dip em' in and then sprinkle crushed candy canes over the top.

Easy right? 

It is time consuming, but totally worth it. And they taste DELICIOUS. The sweetness of the chocolate, with the saltiness of the pretzels and the double kick of peppermint.

YUM. And so Christmas-y. Your friends will love them, promise.

Peppermint Chocolate-Covered Pretzels

• 1  bag holiday shaped (or regular) pretzels
• 2 bags vegan chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, divided
• 8-10 drops of peppermint oil
• 6 candy canes

Prepare your work station. Lay out wax paper on several cookie sheets.

I like to do the pretzels in two batches, each time using a bag of chocolate chips and 1/8 cup of coconut oil. It's easier to deal with the chocolate that way and then you can make better use of your cookie sheets instead of having 6 cookie sheets clogging up your fridge (I don't even have 6 cookie sheets so I HAD to do them in two batches.)

Using a double broiler, melt the coconut oil and chocolate chips over low-medium heat.

When warm, add in the peppermint oil. Depending on how peppermint-y you like them, you can adjust the amount of oil you use accordingly. Start on the conservative side because that stuff is strong.

While the chocolate is heating, unwrap the candy canes and place them in a gallon sized plastic bag. Using a meat cleaver, crush up the candy canes (you could use a food processor I guess but crushing them with a meat cleaver is SO FUN. And if you're vegan like me, this might be the only action the meat cleaver ever sees...)

Then, once your chocolate is melty, start dipping your pretzels! Dip about 8-10, laying them out on the wax paper and then sprinkle crushed candy canes over the top. I find that doing 8-10 at a time is a good number to keep them moving but not too many that the chocolate starts the harden. Adding the coconut oil makes it a little more forgiving - it won't set up as quickly and melts a lot easier. Definitely use coconut oil if you can!

Then, once your first cookie sheet is full, pop it in the fridge.

Rinse and repeat until all pretzels are covered!

You can present them however you want. I chose to put mine in little mason jars and decorate them as pictured :) I thought they were cute that way but be creative!

 

 In other Christmas news - some friends and I did the Peacock Lane run put on by Portland Running Company and got to run down the brightest and most Christmas-y street in all of Portland :)

It was a blast.

 So so pretty. And it DEFINITELY got me in the Christmas spirit.

The only thing better than running is Christmas running!

I hope you all have beautiful holiday plans!

More Christmas posts to come!













Live long and prosper! And Happy Holidays!!