I love parties. They’re a great way to relax and take a step back from the stresses of life, and actually have fun with the people you love. During the holiday season, parties can be especially festive and memorable. One way to spice up any event, from a casual gathering to a family dinner, is to make these adorable, bite-size buttons made from pretzels and peppermint chocolate. This might be the easiest, fastest treat you can make in a jiffy if you ever need to spice up the dessert course, and the best thing about the recipe is that you can change the flavors to match any holiday.
What you’ll need:

• Square-shaped pretzels
• Peppermint-flavored Hershey’s kisses
• M&M’s, preferably in festive colors (red and green)

How to make it:

For this recipe, I personally used unsalted pretzels so they wouldn’t spoil the minty taste of the chocolate, but salted pretzels should work if you prefer salt over sugar. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees after you have all your ingredients together.

Place each pretzel on a baking tray, spacing them apart about 2 inches so they don’t knock into each other when you take them out of the oven. Make sure you use a baking sheet to prevent chocolate from sticking to the tray (I obviously learned that the hard way).

After all your pretzels are lined up on the baking tray, unwrap all the chocolates and place one in the center of each pretzel. Make sure the chocolates are positioned in the middle of the pretzel, or else they will bubble slide off when you melt them.

After the oven is nice and toasty, place the tray inside and wait for 2-3 minutes. Your goal is to melt the candies enough so they can be squished easily, taking care not to burn them. Before taking the tray out of the oven, you can check to see if the surface of the candies is shiny; since the candies won’t puddle onto the pretzels themselves, this is the best way to see when they have melted.

In my opinion, this is the best part of the process. After taking the tray out of the oven, take the M&M’s, place one in the center of each melted candy, and press down lightly. Try to get this step done quickly, because the chocolate starts to harden soon after taking it out of the oven. After each pretzel button is ready, place the tray in the refrigerator for about 10-20 minutes so the chocolate can harden.

Now take the candies out of the fridge, place in a bright, festive bowl, and enjoy!

By Afsah Khan