I think most of the time around here, my littles are the ones requesting specific desserts and treats. But sometimes, a craving strikes and Mom's the one suggesting chocolate before dinner! :)

This treat happened simply because 1) I love chocolate pretzels and 2) my daughter found these candy eyes at the store one day. I knew we had some white baking chocolate, so I thought it'd be super easy to make some pretzel ghosts!

But as you can see above, I didn't have as much white chocolate as I thought I did. Milk and dark chocolate, on the other hand, are never lacking in our house! So we made an adjustment and decided to add some monsters to our ghosts.

When you're melting chocolate, the temperature matters quite a bit! You can heat it on the stove or in the microwave, and it's helpful to not melt it all the way. Stop it before it's liquid, and then stir - the stirring action will smooth it out the rest of the way! If it seizes (hardens) at any point, you can just reheat it. We found that candy melts work better than other kinds of chocolate for this project.

It's very hard to get a toddler to hold a jar of chocolate without moving. ;) I transferred the melted chocolate into this mason jar - you want to use something tall and narrow. This made it much easier for little hands to dip the pretzel rods in the chocolate without making a huge mess!

Put the dipped pretzels on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet. The decorate however you'd like, making sure to move quickly before the chocolate hardens! Since monsters can be as goofy as you can imagine, this was the perfect project for imprecise toddler hands. :) The candy eyes are what make this great! 

Then simply wait for everything to harden! You can put them in the fridge or freezer if you'd like, but it will also work at room temperature within an hour.