Decadent Dipped Pretzel Rods

I have had these before and seen them around, but we were reminded of the idea while browsing our favorite recipe website, Our Best Bites, for shower food ideas.  They have a very detailed post about dipping pretzels, if you'd like more info.  It is pretty self explanatory, though.  Here's what we did....

Decadent Dipped Pretzel Rods

Pretzel Rods (We used Snyder's brand....apparently the Walmart brand break easily, so avoid those.)

Caramel (The melting bits that come in the baking section are great....no unwrapping!)

Chocolate (Either chocolate chips combined with shortening to thin it out or "bark," which is made for melting.)

Candy or other coatings (crushed candy bars, graham crackers, coconut flakes, etc.)

Melt the chocolate (we did milk chocolate, white chocolate, and mint chocolate) and caramel in MUGS. Mugs are easy to tip up and manipulate.  Dip the pretzel, let the excess run back into the mug, and lay on wax paper or a cooling rack.  (Note: If you use a cooling rack---like we did---then remember to put wax paper UNDER it---like we did not---so that you won't have a huge mess stuck to your counter.  Ugh.)  We loved the combo of dipping in caramel, letting it cool, and then dipping it in chocolate.  A yummy surprise!  You can roll them in toppings or drizzle other chocolates on top.  Our favorite combination, for both taste and appearance, was caramel with a layer of milk chocolate on top, drizzled for effect with white chocolate.  We put them in cups and they were both tasty and cute!