St. Patrick's Day Snack - M&M Pretzel Treats

This is a crazy easy recipe, great for little kitchen helpers.  

You will need square pretzels, Hershey Kisses, and green (we used mint) M&M candies.

Step one, spread pretzels on a cookie sheet.  This would be a good fine motor skills activity for the smallest helpers.  

You get to eat the broken ones, of course.  The kids have made these pretzel treats with me so many times now, that Brianna made them all by herself this time.

Step 2, remove the wrappers from the kisses.  This is a good job for a slightly older, quicker child to tackle, while the youngest is working on the pretzels.  You don't want a toddler/preschooler holding on to the kisses so long that they melt in their pudgy little fists while they're trying to get the wrappers off.  

Step 3, put one kiss on each pretzel.  Everyone can help with this one.  I'm sure this meets some "matching one to one" standard for early math.  

Step 4, place in the oven at 200*, and set the timer for 2 minutes.  Post a little person at the oven door, and ask them to tell you when the kisses get shiny.

This is important, because you want the kisses to melt, not burn.  The ones above burned.  Now, my kids ate the pretzels and kisses anyway, but we were unable to complete Step 5 with this batch, so this was "scrap" as far as I was concerned.  Chocolate doesn't burn like rice does.  Chocolate gets hard, instead.  

Step 5 is to remove the tray from the oven while the kisses are shiny and melted, and quickly place an M&M on each and press down to adhere the 3 components to each other.  This is a job for older kids and/or Mom.  You have to work quickly, before the chocolate begins to set, and you need to be careful not to touch the hot pan, and not to get chocolate on your fingers.  I like to put the M&Ms on "m" side down, but it doesn't really matter.

Step 6, set the tray in the refrigerator until the chocolate becomes firm again.

Now you're ready to enjoy!  These are easy and tasty and popular!  It's fun to make variations.  At Christmas, we make them with red & green mint M&Ms and dark chocolate kisses.  You can use pastel kisses for Easter treats.  If you like salty & sweet together, give these a try!   

Linking up with:

http://happyandblessedhome.com and

and http://hsbapost.com/2014/03/20/march-2014-hot-homeschool-hop/

Thanks for clicking for us!