Santa Claus Pretzel Bites

You’ll only need pretzels and candy melts to make these adorable sweet and salty Santa Claus Pretzel Bites.

We’ve made a lot of Pretzel Bites over the years, but these Pretzel Bites are our all-time favorites.  And all you’ll need to make these adorable Christmas treats are pretzels and candy melts.   Sweet, salty and delicious, and oh so very adorable … the ultimate combination for a winning Christmas recipe.  We predict that your family and friends are going to love these Santa Claus Pretzel Bites when they find them on your holiday party dessert table.  They would also be a fun DIY Christmas Food gift for a friend, neighbor, or teacher.  Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Prepping the Candy Melts

Step 1: You will need three colors of Wilton Candy melts to make these adorable Santa Claus Pretzel Bites.  Red for his hat and nose. White (which is more of an ivory color) for his face and Bright White for his hat brim and beard. Place 25-30 of each (maybe a little less of the White) in sandwich bags.
Step 2: Melt the candy melts in the microwave.  Start with 30 seconds, open the microwave and then check the candy melts. Massage the melts around in the bag. Then continue to melt at 10 second intervals until they are all completely melted. Don’t melt all three of the colors at once.  Start with the red, you will need that first.

How to Create the Santa Claus Face

Step 3: Layout the mini pretzels on a piece of foil or parchment paper.  We used Rold Gold Tiny Twists for our Santa Claus Pretzel Bites, they are a little bigger than the other mini pretzels we saw at our grocery store and we liked that.  But this decorating technique will work with any sized pretzel twist.  Place the pretzel on its side like a “C” or an “E”.  Snip off a very tiny piece on one of the bottom corners of the plastic sandwich bag.
Step 4: Squeeze the melted red candy melt mixture into the top hole of the pretzel.  After that is filled, cover the top area to form the Santa Hat. I worked assembly-line style.  I created all the Santa Hats and allowed them to dry before moving on to the next step.  If you work on a foiled covered cookie sheet, you can place the cookie sheet with the pretzel bites in the refrigerator for 5 minutes to speed up the drying process.
Step 5: Now melt the white candy melts.  You will use those for the Santa face.  The contrast between the white and bright white might feel slight but it is noticeable in the finished Santa Claus Pretzel Bite. Snip off a tiny corner of the sandwich bag and squeeze out enough white candy melts to cover the top portion of the remaining uncovered area of the pretzel as shown in the picture above. Allow this candy to cool and harden before moving on.  (I made 30 pretzel bites and by the time I finished adding the face on the last one, the face area on the first one had already hardened.)
Step 6: Now it is time to melt the Bright White Candy Melts.  You will use them to create a white brim for Santa’s hat his beard.  Snip off a tiny corner of the sandwich bag as you did before and check out the diagram below to see how I applied the melted Bright White Candy Melts.

1. Add the brim of the hat over the bottom of the red hat and the top of the face area.  Use a single sweeping motion.  At the end of the hat, move down next to the right side of the face until you get to the bottom of the pretzel. Now zig back and forth to create some dimension for the beard.  Stop when you meet the brim of the Santa Hat on the left-hand side.
2. Make a small swish of candy melts out from the center to the left-hand side for Santa’s mustache.
3. Repeat going the other way for the other side of his mustache.

Repeat on all the Santa Claus Pretzel Bites.  Don’t worry.  It’s easy enough!

Step 7: When Santa’s beard has hardened.  Use a toothpick to add a red nose in the middle of the mustache area.
Step 9: Finally, melt a handful of chocolate chips and use a toothpick to make two small eyes on the face area directly above the red Santa nose.

Step 9: That’s it.  So very adorable!  Store them in an airtight container until you are ready to serve them.  Pretzel Bites freeze fine if you want to make these ahead for Christmas.   But they also keep for quite a while at room temperature as long as you have them in a very airtight container.

Other Christmas Dessert Recipes You Will Love

• Santa Crunch Popcorn
• Santa Claus Rice Kripsie Treats
• Mickey Mouse Santa Hat Cupcakes
• Candy Cane Cookies

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