my "semi-homemade"goodies

So I'm in charge of deserts for our family get together this weekend. So I decided to make several things including cookies. I'm going to share my favorite, and fairly easy steps for festive, delicious crowd pleasing cookies that keep for weeks!

So I love to make chocolate covered graham crackers, oreos and pretzels. And my husband loves peanut butter balls (think homemade recess peanut butter cups) or as my kids call them "chocolate rocks".

First step for the crackers and oreos is to dust them off of any crumbs so you don't dirty up the chocolate.


If you want to decorate the tops with colored chocolates get a couple squeeze bottles and slowly melt them in the microwave in 15 second intervals with the tops off. Fill them...heat them...squeeze them up...repeat, until it's all melted and smooth. Put your waffle iron on low and lay several thick dishtowels on the top to keep the bottles warm and the chocolate workable. **NOTE** check your squeezbottles periodically to make sure the bottoms are not getting to hot. Last year I left one on to long and went to use it and the whole bottom squeezed out.


I forgot to take a photo of my chocolate pot...but here is the Michales version, which is where I bought it. $15 with a coupon. And sooooo well worth it! Just buy a bunch of the Wilton's chocolates, throw them in, melt them and then dip. I use a fork. You want to get your item covered completely and then tap it so the excess chocolate and any air bubbles with come off. Air bubbles are not really a big deal....they just kind of look "not perfect"....Martha S. would not find them acceptable...lol!



You do need to work kind of quickly. Make sure you line your cookie sheets with waxed paper. Get your cookies, etc...in the chocolate and then drizzle or sprinkle as you like. Then off to the fridge to set them up. If you take too long the chocolate will start to turn white, so the sooner you can get it to the fridge the better! Leave them in there about 20-30 minutes.


When drizzling the colored chocolate don't worry about going off your cookies, when they harden you can just snap the excess off to even them out and make them look perfect!


So here are all my finished goodies! I made enough to pass around to the neighbors too! Next week I'm hoping to have time to work on the pretzels. I love to do those in white chocolate with white sprinkles!


You can store all of these items in Ziplocs for weeks! the chocolate is fine at room temp, so just put them in a dark room or closet out of the sun if you want to store them for awhile! If you have any questions just email me!