Pretzel Pumpkins ~ DIY Halloween Treats

Recipes / 26 Comments

Thanks to Jessica over at  Butter With A Side Of Bread for sharing her adorable idea of Pretzel Pumpkins.  Prefect for Halloween and Fall! Best part is you only need 4 things to make them, kids friendly too!

Pretzel Pumpkins

  • 1 bag mini pretzels {you won’t use the whole bag, only about 1/4}
  • 1 bag M&M’s candy, needing only the green ones {fun separating activity for kids!}
  • orange food coloring, I used about 1/8th tsp of Wilton’s gel colors
  • 1 bag White Chocolate chips, melted slowly {directions below}
  • 1 TBSP shortening, to thin out chocolate

First step is to melt the chocolate. I used 10 oz of baking chocolate squares, but you can use a bag of white chocolate chips- the process is still the same. Before you even put it in the microwave, add about 1 TBSP shortening. You need to thin out the chocolate prior to dunking the pretzels or else the chocolate will be so thick you won’t even be able to tell it’s a pretzel under there! Shortening is the ONLY thing that will do this- don’t add water, butter, etc. Shortening!

Go slowly! White chocolate seizes easily, and you don’t want to coat your pretzels with grainy chocolate, right? Go slowly and stir minimally. I put mine on for 1 minute, stirred gently, then put it in for an additional minute. When I took it out, the chocolate still looked solid. It wasn’t! Add your orange coloring and stir gently, until it’s nice and smooth.

I’ve tested out a few ways to coat pretzels in chocolate and none of them really work as well as simply using your fingers. So I took a picture above of my elaborate technique.

Once you’ve dunked your pretzel, adding a nice coating, lay it out on a piece of wax paper. While it’s still wet, take a green M&M and set it in the crook of the pretzel, on it’s side. See? Now it’s a cute little green stem.

If you see a few bare spots on your pretzels, while they’re still wet, dab some more chocolate on them using your finger.

Must Read

26 thoughts on “Pretzel Pumpkins ~ DIY Halloween Treats”

  1. MicheleTunisonMyers

    I disagree, Barbara.  There’s creativity and imagination in costume-making and decorating and faith in community while trick-or-treating, those are healthy values.  Candy and treats can be monitored and there are Halloween-themed snacks made with fruit, vegetables, whole grains and legumes if there’s concern over sugar overload.  Happy Falloween!

  3. Patti Duff Brown

    These are cute. Usually, you need to add candy color to chocolate, which is on the oilier side. There’s also powdered food color that can be used for chocolate or frosting. Another option would be to keep the chocolate white, and sprinkle the pretzels with orange colored sugar. Best method for dipping pretzels is with a fork. I usually knock the excess chocolate off first when I make regular chocolate covered pretzels, but with these, you need it, so scrape the excess off the bottom of the fork (on the edge of whatever container you’ve melted your chocolate in), and just slide them off the fork onto wax paper. I love the M&M stems. Happy Halloween!

  4. Glenna Jasper Landry

    You act like we have ample amounts of time to make all these snacks

  9. Cindy Newman Stucker

    sometimes you need to let go of the health food and have a little fun – you don’t have to eat the whole batch at once !

  10. Joanna Smith Cline

    I have to take a snack to my son’s 1st grade class next week. I think this may be that snack. Too cute!

  11. Ellie Papy Summers

    These are so cute and they look like something easy I could make for my daughter and her friends.

  20. A Thrifty Mom

    You’re welcome! Hope the party (& the pumpkins) turn out great. 🙂

  23. Nicole Davis

    My daughter is having a halloween birthday party. I think I may make some of these. They’re so cute. Thanks for the idea 🙂

  25. Amy Ball

    that’s how I’ll use my orange candy melts I got on sale at Micheal’s craft store

Comments are closed.