Tag: pretzels

Spiderweb Snacks

1 Comment

Spider Web Snack (7).JPG

Travis is so into spiders lately: finding them in our new home; discovering their webs in the garage; you name it. So no better way to foster his interest than to make a spider-themed snack! We actually tried to do this craft once before, but lacked a good vegan white chocolate at the time. This time turned out so much better. As a bonus, the webs are an example of circular symmetry, something we’e been studying lately in our play.

First, arrange 5 or 6 pretzels as the spokes of the web on wax paper.

Spider Web Snack (4)

Meanwhile, place vegan white chocolate and non-dairy chocolate chips in zip-top bags and place in glass jars.

Spider Web Snack (1)

Fill the jars with hot water (a grown-up step). Travis loved watching the chocolate turn from solid to melted in this method.

Spider Web Snack (3)

Remove the bags from the water and snip a small hole in the bottom corner. We piped a big circle of chocolate in the center, and added a few raisin “flies” as victims. Oh no!

Spider Web Snack (5)

Pipe additional circles of white chocolate to form each web.

Spider Web Snack (6)

Then each web got a big melted chocolate spider. They were tarantulas, Travis decided. We ran out of white chocolate, so made one dark chocolate web as well. Transfer the wax paper to the fridge to cool.

Spider Web Snack alt

The webs will set quite quickly, at which point you can peel them off the wax paper for a neat reveal. It turned out that the dark chocolate web peeled off more easily, but they all were fantastically creepy and fun!

Spider Web Snack var

Pretzel Log Cabin

2 Comments

Pretzel Cabin (6)

We’ve been enjoying a great book recently about Abraham Lincoln (from the Ordinary People Change the World series written by Brad Meltzer), which prompted talk about a log cabin. You can introduce your child to this style of architecture through classic toys like Lincoln Logs of course, but even more fun was putting together this edible version!

To construct the cabin, you need thick pretzel rods and your frosting of choice – we like the vegan vanilla from Wholesome Sweeteners.

Start out with a base, using the frosting as “glue” to attach the four corners.

Pretzel Cabin (1)

Travis loved smearing on the frosting with a plastic knife, but your child may find that a makeshift pastry bag (i.e. a zip-top bag with a hole snipped in it) is easier.

Pretzel Cabin (2)

From there, we spread our pretzels with more frosting (“cement”), and built up several layers.

Pretzel Cabin (3)

A little carpenter at work!

Pretzel Cabin (5)

It was tough to make the roof stay in the way we originally planned; if you have chocolate at home, it may be useful to melt some and use that to adhere two pretzel rods diagonally together. We managed to balance ours with generous globs of frosting, though it wasn’t particularly sturdy.

Pretzel Cabin (7)

Luckily, the cabin was meant to be eaten, not saved – what a fun snack!

If you make this craft in the wintertime, your child may want to sprinkle the structure with coconut “snow” before snacking, too.

Seasoned Pretzels

Leave a comment

Seasoned Pretzel (6)

Kids will love shaking up this snack… literally! Prepare the pretzels in the morning, and they’ll be ready after school for an afternoon nibble.

You’ll need a 2-gallon zippered plastic bag to make the pretzels. I only had 1-gallon bags on hand, so we divided the pretzels into two portions, and for all of the quantities below, we divided in half among each bag.

Place the plastic bag (or bags) in a large bowl, and fill with 1 (16-ounce) bag mini pretzels.

Seasoned Pretzel (1)

Add 1/2 cup olive oil.

Seasoned Pretzel (2)

Sprinkle in 2 teaspoons garlic powder, 2 teaspoons dried dill, and 4 teaspoons ranch-dressing seasoning (note: try the Saucy Ranch Seasoning from The Vegetarian Express). Travis loved smelling each herb!

Seasoned Pretzel (3)

Now the fun part: seal the bag and shake!

Seasoned Pretzel (4)

Leave the pretzels to marinate at room temperature for at least 8 hours before snacking.

Seasoned Pretzel (5)

Thanks for the great snack idea High Five magazine!

Spider Web Snacks

Leave a comment

Spider Snack (2)

To continue with some recent web-filled fun, we made edible spiderwebs for snack! This project has a few steps that kids can help out with for hands-on cooking fun.

Let your child help arrange 5 pretzel sticks on wax paper so they form a five-pointed star. Make as many arrangements of 5 as you’ll need to feed all the children snacking in your household.

Spider Snack (1)

Adults: Microwave chocolate chips at 20 second intervals until melted (about 1 minute total). Transfer the melted chocolate to a zip-top plastic bag, then pipe the chocolate “web” in circles around the pretzel rods.

Spider Snack (3)

Travis loved helping with this step, so our webs weren’t always perfect circles – nothing wrong with a few globs!

You can add a big clump of raisins in the center as big scary spiders. Single raisins around the edges made perfect flies caught in the web.

Spider Snack (4)

Transfer the wax paper to the fridge and let the chocolate set. Once it cools, you can remove the spider web directly from the wax paper. Impatience meant that ours didn’t last nearly that long, so instead we ate a snack that looked more like chocolate-dipped pretzels – delicious either way!

Spider Snack (5)