Like Greased Caramel

Caramel Pretzel Bites. A caramel unwrapped and flattened, wrapped around a pretzel nugget and dipped in chocolate. Sounds (and looks) amazing, and not terribly difficult, right? Such was my optimistic mood on Saturday morning when I got ready to try these babies. 3 ingredients, you can't go wrong. (Cue ominous music.)

As per usual, I couldn't quite do it exactly according to plan. I initially wanted to make these because I had a bunch of caramel left over from supper group the previous week, which I had made to dip apples in. The reason more of the caramel didn't get eaten was because I evidently boiled it a touch too long, so it was a little too stiff to dip things in, and it ended up being more of an item you spent the next 2 hours picking out of your back teeth, in a very unflattering manner.

So, my thought was that I'd heat up the caramel to make it a bit more fluid (which worked), and then roll it out. I got started by smartly covering the counter in wax paper. I dumped the caramel on top of the wax paper and put another on top of it and squished everything down. Then, I decided I probably better double-check that it wasn't sticking. Of course it was. Like the dickens, as the say. So, I painstakingly scraped most of it off the wax paper and threw the paper away.

Silly me, I thought. I should have greased the wax paper. Still optimistic, I greased up another set of wax paper good and proper. This seemed like it'd be a great solution, until I realized that as I rolled, the newly exposed caramel carried the grease away with it. Or something. Either way, the long and short of it is that the exact same thing happened. Disastrous sticking. More scraping. More throwing away of wax paper. (And yes, I was definitely losing caramel mass AND brain mass at this point.)

Finally, out of exasperation, I just greased the entire counter area and the metal rolling pin. Nothing stuck anymore. However, that meant the rolling pin just spun on the caramel and the caramel was moving all over the counter. The final solution ended up being me patting and stretching it into some generally desirable shape. (And trying not to scream.)

The next step was to stick the pretzels to the caramel. Turns out, when the caramel is as well-greased as mine was, the pretzels don't stick too well, but I was DETERMINED to make this work, in some form or another at this point. I more or less got the pretzels to wedge into the caramel a bit, and then tried dipping them in the melted chocolate chips (which actually is what the recipe called for). Apparently, I had conveniently forgotten (as I do once or twice a year), that I DESPISE dipping things, or doing anything that requires me to touch every single serving of something. With this background, the dipping was less than ideal.

After dipping three caramel/pretzel pieces, and realizing they were coming out looking like a big gloppy mess, to put it politely, I re-engineered the process. The final product ended up going something like this on some of my leftover greased wax paper: dab of chocolate, square of hardened caramel, dab of chocolate, pretzel. Done. End of story. While this definitely worked, I was more and more infuriated with every dab at how awry this activity had gone. (I had also just realized that these items would have to stay in the fridge if I didn't want the caramel to melt into each other, but that then the caramel would practically break off in your teeth, again leaving me with a lose-lose situation. At that point though, I was in too deep, I just had to finish it as a matter of principle.)

I thankfully finished all of the pretzel caramel situations, with an entirely greased counter, the belly of my shirt with giant chocolatey streaks, and chocolate up to my elbows. But, I still had a bunch of chocolate left over. I knew I should just throw it out and be done with it, given my current level of frustration, but if I was that sort of person, I wouldn't be in the current mess in the first place, as I would have thrown out the caramel a week ago. So, since I still had 2/3 of a bag of pretzels left, I just dipped those half way into the chocolate. Turns out, that was the easiest, most attractive thing I did all afternoon (though still time-consuming).

When all was said and done, I was so frustrated with the whole episode, I had to wash every dish in eyesight, wash every ounce of chocolate off me in a long shower, and throw the recipe away to even begin to alleviate the aggravation. I have not had a total disaster like that in the kitchen for a while. I would like to blame it on being pregnant, but we all know that is something that could have happened to me any day of my life. And I'm sure it will happen again. Oh well, here's to staying humble, right?