Peanut Butter Chocolate Pretzels

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pretzels:

I am a self-proclaimed peanut butter connoisseur.  I LOVE it.  Everything is better with peanut butter smothered all over it.  But only certain kinds.  If it's not the right kind of peanut butter, I won't even eat it.
I've received a lot of chocolate covered pretzels as "neighbor gifts" at Christmastime over the years, and I've always loved them.  But when the idea popped in my head to make pretzel rods covered in peanut butter and THEN chocolate, nothing was stopping me.  I made a bee-line to the grocery store and bought some pretzel rods.  I experimented with a few different ways and finally got a delicious peanut butter chocolaty treat that any sweet tooth would die for.

Here's how I did it:
Gather together some pretzel rods, some chocolate (I just used chocolate chips) of your choice... milk, semi-sweet, dark... whatever you like, and your favorite peanut butter.
Melt the peanut butter in the microwave so that it runs.  I melted about 3/4 cup in 30 seconds.  Dip your pretzel rod in the melted peanut butter and immediately put it in the freezer.  Continue dipping and freezing until you have all the pretzels that you want.  I like to freeze mine until they're nice and hard, to ensure that the peanut butter doesn't just slide right off when you dip it in the chocolate.  This should take 1-2 hours.
Next, melt your chocolate in the microwave in small increments (10-15 seconds) so that you don't burn it.  Make sure you stir it well in between.  Once it's nice and melted, take your pretzels out and dip them, fully covering the peanut butter, and put it back in the freezer quickly so that everything doesn't melt off the stick.  Once you've dipped all the pretzels, let them freeze until they've set up, 15-30 minutes.
Take them out of the freezer and give them away or eat them up, they're definitely hard to resist!

Snowflake Sugar Cookies

These fun snowflake cookies are made using the same recipe as my airplane sugar cookies.  I love this recipe for 2 reasons.  The first is that the cookies hold their shape really well, which is perfect for intricate cookies like these.  The second reason is that they're just yummy.  They really taste fabulous. 

Sugar Cookies (via cakecentral.com)
6 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
2 cups unsalted butter
2 cups sugar (white granulated)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract or desired flavoring (I like almond myself)
1 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix dry ingredients, and add a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together.  Chill for 1 to 2 hours.

Cut cookies and place on greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Once your cookies are completely cooled, you can frost them. I like to ice a border of royal icing around the edge of my cookies first, so that I don't have run-off.  It gives the cookie a crisp, professional look.

Royal Icing
3 large egg whites
1 lb. confectioner’s sugar
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until they reach the soft peak stage.  Add confectioner's sugar, a little at a time, until stiff peaks form.

To ice your cookies, fill a zippered sandwich bag with icing and cut a little off the corner.  Frost your border and allow a few minutes for the icing to harden.  Finally,  you'll want to fill in your cookie with regular icing.  I put about 2 cups of confectioner's sugar in a bowl and add a little milk until I get my desired consistency (not runny, but not stiff).  Fill another sandwich bag with this icing, snip the corner of the bag, and fill the cookie.  To get an even consistency, use a toothpick or your (clean) pinky finger to spread the icing. 

The cookie cutters were bought at Williams-Sonoma last winter, but I was just in their store a few weeks ago and they still have them!  I love the cookie cutters because you can be creative with how you design them.  Every snowflake can be different.

Up, Up, and Away! {Airplane Cookies}

I made these airplane sugar cookies for a friend's baby shower last weekend.  They take a little time, but they turned out cute!  I've experimented with a few different sugar cookie recipes, and this one is definitely the best at keeping it's shape. 

Sugar Cookies (via cakecentral.com)
6 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
2 cups unsalted butter
2 cups sugar (white granulated)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract or desired flavoring (I like almond myself)
1 tsp. salt

Instructions

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix dry ingredients and add a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together.  Chill for 1 to 2 hours.

Cut cookies and place on greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
Once your cookies are completely cooled, you can frost them.  I like to ice a border of royal icing around the edge of my cookies so that I don't have run-off.  It gives the cookie a crisp, professional look.

Royal Icing
3 large egg whites
1 lb. confectioner’s sugar
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until they reach the soft peak stage.  Add confectioner's sugar, a little at a time, until stiff peaks form.

 
To ice your cookies, fill a zippered sandwich bag with icing and cut a little off the corner.  Frost your border and allow a few minutes for the icing to harden.  Finally,  you'll want to fill in your cookie with regular icing.  I put about 2 cups of confectioner's sugar in a bowl and add a little milk until I get my desired consistency (not runny, but not stiff).  Fill another sandwich bag with this icing, snip the corner of the bag, and fill the cookie.  To get an even consistency, use a toothpick or your (clean) pinky finger to spread the icing. 
Once this has set up, you can add any extra details with royal icing.  All of these icings can be tinted by adding food coloring. 

I really love a beautiful cookie!  Here's some more from around the web.

 

Credits:

• Baby shower cookies are from Glory of Glorious Treats
• Star cookies are from Eleni's New York

Whitney