Chocolate Pretzel Bonfires

These little chocolate bonfires are perfect for Halloween or Samhain! They are made the same way as my pretzel nests, except that you keep the stacks as they are instead of shaping them into nests, and you add fruit roll-up flames instead of jelly bean eggs. You will need:

12 oz of vegan chocolate chips

12 g (1 TBS) of shortening

8 oz of pretzel sticks

2 or 3 Color By The Foot Fruit Snacks

If you are not eating gluten free, you can use any vegan pretzel sticks. You can also use any kind of vegan chocolate chips that you like. This tutorial on vegan chocolate explains how to get the depth of chocolate flavor that you prefer. I found the Trader Joe’s chocolate chips after I wrote the tutorial, and they have become my vegan chocolate of choice because they taste great and are only $1.99 for 12 oz!

To make the bonfires, start by removing the extra salt from the pretzels and then break the sticks into irregular pieces:

Remove 2 oz (1/3 c) of the chocolate chips from the bag and chop them up:

Next, you will need to temper your remaining chocolate chips with the shortening by following the directions here.

Stir in the pretzels:

Drop the mixture into 18 little stacks on a sheet of parchment:

Let the stacks harden fully, then prepare your flames. From the orange part of the fruit roll, cut triangle-shaped pieces that are about an 1 1/4″ long and 1/3″ wide at the base:

Twist the base of each triangle like this:

Firmly push the twisted end into a space between the pretzels in a stack. Add three or four strips of fruit roll-up flames to each stack to make a bonfire. Repeat until all the campfires are done.