RECIPE: How to Rescue Almost-Ruined Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Originally, this post was going to be called "How to Make Chocolate Covered Pretzels" for the benefit of anyone who, like me, doesn't have the crafty gene and needs to be handheld through the process the first time. (And yes, I'm calling it a craft. You can't buy sugar and flour at Joann Fabrics, but you can buy melting chocolates! Hence it's a craft.)

I was making chocolate covered pretzels for a friend's Easter Egg Hunt. Things started out okay. I put the chocolate in the microwave for a minute on 50% power.

I kept popping it back in for 20-second intervals at 50% power until it got nice and melted.

Or so I thought. While I was microwaving, I was also telling some long-winded story to my husband and I apparently overshot the melting process a little, because when I tried to dip my pretzels, they turned into delicious-but-fugly chocolate globs.

Now, here's where my hubby and I went in different directions. I wanted to take the easy way out; he is an engineer. So we present you with two options for rescuing chocolate covered pretzels when you get distracted and accidentally overcook the chocolate a little bit.

OPTION A: JUST GO WITH IT

Crush the pretzels and dump them in the bowl of goopy chocolate until you have a pleasing pretzel-to-chocolate ratio.

Scoop one-inch balls of pretzel mush out of the bowl and let it set on wax paper. Done! Wasn't that easy?

But my husband doesn't do easy. So he decided to go with....


OPTION B: THE CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENT

Add vegetable oil to your chocolate, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until it hits a consistency that seems conducive to dipping and evenly coating pretzels. For my husband, this ended up being around 2 teaspoons. Then dip and set as usual.

[EDIT: Okay, hubby wants me to alert you to two things. First, the interweb warns that you should never add more than a tablespoon! And second, even with only two teaspoons, it took a lot of stirring to get it to cooperate. This is why I stand by my pretzel clusters!)

He would want me to point out how much nicer his look than mine. But I would like to point out that I sabotaged him by making him test out his scientific theory using peppermint chips, and everyone was a little scared of the mint pretzels. Even though they were delicious, much like Snyder's York Peppermint Pretzel Dips, which are the best thing since sliced bread and I don't know why they're not in stock anywhere! But I digress.

Anyway, both methods work very well in their own way, so don't abandon ship if your melting chocolate isn't cooperating! And I'm happy to report that all the pretzels played very nicely together on a party tray.

The End.