Pretzel Hugs

Looking for an easy dessert that can be adapted to any holiday or occasion? This is that recipe. It’s a great dessert to put out and let people pick at. It is just that perfect combination of salty, sweet, and crunchy. Be careful though, if you’re not, you’ll eat them all! My family has been making these at the holiday’s since ‘I can’t remember when‘ and I will continue to pass down this tradition to my kids!

These are super easy to put together, just make sure you leave time for them to cool. The white chocolate in the Hugs takes longer to cool than you might expect. I speed this up by putting the entire sheet pan in the freezer as soon as it has cooled down to room temperature. The pretzel Hugs may not be quite as pretty freezing them this way, the condensation when you take them out can cause the M&M dye to run a bit, but it’s definitely worth it to me to get them hardened faster (so I can eat them of course!).

Let’s get started! Grab your bag of pretzels, your bag of Hugs, and your bag of M&M’s. This is a GREAT time to get your kids involved. Someone has to peel alllllll of those Hugs… Why not have them do that! (After all, don’t tell them, but this is our least favorite part…) While they are peeling the Hugs, dump a bunch of pretzels on a sheet pan and spreading them out into a single layer. I use these silicone baking mats so that none of the chocolate sticks.

In my pictures you can see that I organize mine, you TOTALLY do not have to do that. I do it because I get more to a sheet pan and I’m totally OCD about things like that. It’s easier to count how many you have on the sheet pan too (multiplication tables anyone?).

Once all of the pretzels are in a single layer and the all the Hugs peeled, it’s time to place the Hugs. Place one Hug on each pretzel. Again, you don’t have to be OCD about it like me but just make sure it’s a 1:1 ratio. For nice events, I like to make sure all of the pretzels and Hugs lines are square to each other so that they look very nice, but for every day snacking, it really doesn’t matter as much to me. Once every pretzel has a Hug, place the sheet pans in the oven for 5 minutes at 200° F. They should be glistening but not melting when you take them out.

Nows it’s time to precariously place one M&M in the center of each Hug. No need to rush if you are using Hugs because they take a long time to harden. Again, for a nice event you could make sure that all the M’s on the M&M’s are facing the same direction or maybe facing down toward the Hug, but for everyday snacking, who cares? Oh and by the way, if you mess a few up, good! More for you to eat that you couldn’t POSSIBLY serve haha.

Now comes the hardest part of the entire thing. They have to cool. You can leave them sitting out at room temperature but it will take hours, that’s right, I said HOURS for them to harden. I typically choose to speed up this process by using the freezer method. I’ll place the entire sheet pan into the freezer to harden. This way usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour depending on how cool the sheet pan is when you put it in. I usually let my sheet pan cool to room temp before placing it in the freezer. The only down side I’ve found to using the freezer method is that there can be condensation on them when you pull them out of the freezer and they hit the humid air which can cause the dye on the M&M’s to run a little. If you don’t mind that, then freeze away!

That’s it, super simple and tasty. The best thing about this recipe is that it can be adapted to any holiday by changing out the colors of M&M’s. I like to do red and green M&M’s at Christmas. These are a great addition to a Christmas cookie tray every year for my family. You can also do spring colors around Easter time or fall colors for Thanksgiving. Orange and brown or black for Halloween would work too! Sally’s having a birthday party and she loves the colors pink and turquoise? Pink and turquoise it is! I hope you enjoy this little treat as much as my family does. They sure don’t last long around here!

Limited But Livin’