Salted caramel pretzel turtles? Yes, please!
I love to bake but it seems like every December I get bogged down with trying to do all the things. I put pressure on myself to be Susie Homemaker and tell myself I should spend hours in the kitchen whipping up homemade holiday treats for everyone I am even remotely connected to: coworkers, neighbors, teachers, the mail carrier. I should be baking from scratch for every holiday party I'm invited to and putting together goody bags of treats for every kid in my kids' classes.
Uh...no.
I'm so stinking busy this time of year that I consider myself a winner if I manage to match my socks when I leave the house. I like to give a nod to the season by making something special for my family to enjoy or to share with others, but most of the time, I find myself buying ready-made stuff.
Ingredients:
1 15 oz bag of pretzels - use the mini twists or the waffle shape
2 cups of pecan halves
Rollo candies (I buy these in the largest bag I can find but essentially, you need one piece of candy for every pretzel piece)
1/2 cup of coarse sea salt or kosher salt
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Line the pretzels up on the baking sheet (set aside any broken pieces).
Top each pretzel pieces with a Rollo candy (yes, you have to unwrap it first!).
Bake for 5 minutes...just enough for the candy to get squishy.
Remove the baking sheet from the oven and nest a pecan piece in the melting candy.
Return to the oven for 5 more minutes.
Remove candy from the baking sheet and allow to cool completely.
Place broken pretzel pieces into a plastic baggie with the salt. Use a mallet to crush the pretzels to where they're the same consistency as the coarse salt.
Sprinkle the pretzel/salt mixture over the top.
Enjoy and share!
The hardest thing with this one is unwrapping the Rollos. This is a great one to let the kids help with. Props to you if you can talk them into unwrapping the Rollos. These make a nice gift or addition to a dessert table...they also make a nice treat with your coffee or tea...just a little bite of sweetness.