How To Make Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Okay, we're going to do chocolate covered pretzels. I've got some tempered chocolate. Tempered chocolate is the process of raising the temperature of chocolate, stirring all the time, and then bringing the temperature back down and then, ever so slightly, raising the temperature again, just by a couple of degrees, to get tempered chocolate.

The reason for doing this is that once the item that you're going to dip in chocolate, if it's tempered chocolate, you'll get a better finish. It will set at room temperature and you won't get any blooming, which is a sort of discoloration on the surface of the chocolate which doesn't look particularly appetizing. So, if you want to learn how to do that, watch the video How to Temper Chocolate and today, we're going to show you how to do chocolate covered pretzels.

And I've got some sugar transfer sheets which are available to purchase at Squires Shop online, all kinds of different designs. The best way to do this is to just take the pretzel and to dip it into your tempered chocolate and then give it a good old shake-off, because you don't want loads of chocolate sitting on the base after they've been dipped, like that, and then place them onto the sheet. And once they're set and you take them off, the transfer will be on the reverse side of the pretzel and the chocolate coating will be all around.

So, I'll do a few more and we'll set them back and I'll show you what they look like once the tempered chocolate has set on the pretzel. Okay, we've got our dipped pretzels, they've got the tempered chocolate around them. I'm just going to show you how you can decorate these with some milk chocolate as a finishing touch and also how to make a piping bag out of a triangle of baking paper.

Best way to do it is to put it on the deck and then take the two folds across and then bring it round until you have a cone shape, like that, pinch the top of the cone and fold it in on itself, okay, and then tuck in all around and keep tucking the edges round just to secure the piping bag in the position you want to be in. Okay, then, take your different colored chocolate, this is a milk chocolate and I've got it tempered, and carefully spoon it into your piping bag. You won't need very much because we're only going to do a few lines just over the top of the pretzel, just to give them another little finish.

Okay, your piping bag, and like a tube of toothpaste, just give it a squeeze until you get the free running chocolate that you want. You see it there coming out? Perfect! And now, we're just going to take our pretzels that we've got dipped in dark chocolate and then give them a little bit of milk chocolate love. Okay, so we're going to take these away and set them completely and then I'll bring them back to show what they look like.

Okay, our pretzels with the tempered chocolate, transfer sheet, they're all set. So, we're just going to peel them off and put them on a plate and then this is what you might have as a little treat for the kids or as a petit four or something like that after a dinner party. Okay, we'll lift one off and again, you see the chocolate's all set.

On the back there, there's the transfer sheet as well. Put that on the plate. There you go, so you've got all the pretzels there with a bit of milk, bit of dark chocolate that's been tempered, the sugar acetate patterns that show up on the underside, so either way, you look at them, quite visual and fun and yes, that's how you do chocolate covered pretzels.
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