Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Pretzel Butterflies - yummy spring/summer snack

How cute is this? 
 

All you need to get started is wax paper,  a bag of mini pretzels and a bag of mini pretzel sticks. Then head out to your local craft store (in my case that is Michael's craft store) and get melting chocolates (I did dark for the body and head and then got purple for the wings, but you can do any color you want). Ooh, and don't forget some cute sprinkle to add to the wings!   Michael's also sells these great pastry bags that you can use directly in the microwave to melt the chocolate to use for these tasty treats!  The key to this project is having everything ready to go before you melt the chocolate (the chocolate sets up fairly quickly, so you have to work quickly!) 
 
First I laid out my mini pretzels on wax paper back to back like the above picture.
 
Next I broke the mini pretzel sticks in half and had them ready to go to use for the antennae.
 
Then I piped the chocolate to create the "body" of the caterpillar, which also holds the  pretzels together, and at the top I made a circle for the "head" of the butterfly.  As soon as you make the head, you have to put the mini pretzels sticks in that chocolate for the anntenae so they stick.
 
Then I melted the purple chocolate and filled in the "wings" of the butterfly and
put the sprinkles.  That's it!  Easy and the children in my son's class loved them! 
My suggestion as far as transporting them is to put a layer of wax paper
inbetween each layer of butterflies so they don't stick together.  Enjoy!