Chocolate Pretzel Hearts – A Quick and Easy Treat for Valentine’s Day

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, this week I decided to experiment with chocolate, pretzels, and sprinkles to create a quick, inexpensive gift for family and friends.  Chocolate and Valentine’s Day just go together, but add in pretzels and you have that whole salty/sweet thing going on.  With the help of Dove hearts, not only is the chocolate delicious, but cute, too.  I had so much fun making these this week.  I am a little sad I don’t have little ones at home any more, because this would be a great project to do with your kids as it is so easy.  They look great on a white plate altogether to set out at a party or you can package them up in individual containers to give as gifts.

It took me all of about 2 minutes to put them together, and then 4 more minutes to bake them so the chocolate melts and becomes soft and creamy.  Just be sure you put down parchment paper on the cookie sheet before assembling them.  Also, it is important to place them on a plate immediately after baking.  When I didn’t do that the first time, the chocolate continued to melt because of the hot pan, and the heart shape became a little lopsided.

If you only cook them for 4 minutes and remove them from the pan right away, the chocolate holds its shape and doesn’t melt all over the place.  You can stick them in the refrigerator for a couple of minutes to set the chocolate up after baking if you are in a hurry to package them.

I love coming up with different ways to package treats.  These smaller decorative Chinese food boxes worked perfect to hold just a few pretzel hearts.  I found these particular boxes at Cost Plus, but have seen them at Michael’s.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still kind of tired from Christmas.  Am I the only one who feels that way?  The idea of thinking about another holiday, and investing a lot of time on a cooking project is not very appealing at this point.  Mostly I just want to do some cleaning to get my house on back on track after being neglected for awhile.  That is why I love these.  They don’t take all day, but taste fantastic, and still have that cute factor you want for Valentine’s Day.  Don’t forget to save a few for yourself as well.  They make a great reward after a long day of cleaning!

Chocolate Pretzel Hearts

• Servings: Approximately 36
• Time: 10 minutes
• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

• mini pretzels (Snyder’s look more like hearts but any can be used)
• 8.87 package Dove Dark Chocolate Hearts
• 3.25 oz. Wilton Jumbo Heart Sprinkles (found in cake decorating section of Wal-Mart or craft store)
• parchment paper

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Unwrap chocolate hearts.
4. Place pretzels on parchment paper.
5. Place a chocolate heart on each pretzel, lining the pretzels and hearts up so that the heart shape matches.
6. Place a heart sprinkle on top of each chocolate heart.
7. Very carefully put the pan in the oven making sure to not jostle the heart sprinkles out-of-place.
8. Cook for 4 minutes.  Do not overcook or the chocolate will melt too much and lose its heart shape.
9. Immediately remove the pretzels from the pan to a plate to cool.  Otherwise the chocolate will continue to melt and lose the heart shape.
10. Place the plate of chocolates in the refrigerator for about 5-10 minutes to set the chocolate.
11. Package as desired or cover plate with plastic wrap until ready to use.

Recipe from Cook AZ I Do, idea inspired by The Paper Piñata

Advertisements