Christmas Pretzels {with an Allergy Free Alternative}

Every year our family does a ton of baking. We give most of it away as Christmas gifts. It's a lot of fun, and the girls look forward to our "baking day".

This year I found a really cute recipe for these pretzel snacks, and thought they would make a cute addition to our cookie trays. A bonus is that I figured an easy way to make them allergy friendly.

I got the original idea from this blog post and then made my allergy friendly adjustments, as noted below.

Here's step-by-step directions for making these:

First step is to gather supplies:

• Ring pretzels
• Hershey's candy cane kisses
• Nestle red & green morsels

Cover a large baking sheet with wax paper or parchment paper, then spread the ring pretzels out over it so they are flat and not overlapping.

After unwrapping all the kisses, place one kiss inside each pretzel ring. Some of them might seem like they won't fit, and that's ok. They will melt and easily fill the area inside the ring.

Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees. Place the baking sheet of pretzels and kisses in the oven for 4 minutes. After removing them from the oven, immediately place one small Nestle morsel into the center of each melted kiss. I used the smallest amount of pressure to push down and make sure the melted kiss filled the area inside the pretzel ring, taking care to not 'smudge' the red and white lines.

Place in a cold spot, to let them harden and chill. Enjoy!

They have a crunchy texture and a minty taste and look fabulous as fillers on a cookie tray. And the best part? This is a very kid-friendly project!

Now....for the allergy-free version......

I gathered the following supplies:

• Ener-G gluten free, dairy free pretzel rings
• Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips (gluten/dairy free)
• crushed peppermints (you can take safe candy canes and throw them into a food processor - they will make a nice bowl full of crushed peppermint pieces)

Follow the same procedure as above - cover a baking sheet with wax or parchment paper, lay out the pretzel rings on the sheet, and fill each ring with as many mini chips as will fit without overflowing.
Feel free to pile them up, because they will flatten out when they melt.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and place the sheet into the oven for 4 minutes. When you pull the sheet out, immediately take a small spoon and spread the melted chocolate inside the pretzel ring area.

Quickly, before the chocolate hardens, sprinkle the crushed peppermint pieces into the  middle of each pool of melted chocolate.

These are crunchy, minty safe snacks for kiddos with allergies who can't enjoy all the regular Christmas baking.  The snacks are free of dairy and gluten and nuts!  And they are super easy and quick to make!

I am linking this recipe up with Lisa at Try A New Recipe Tuesday and Karen at Kids and A Mom In the Kitchen



This is also linked to Cooking With Kids at The Old Schoolhouse.





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