CORNY PEANUT BUTTER BUTTONS

I love those little pretzel turtle treats.  The combination of tastes -- salt from the pretzels, the chocolate and the caramel from the Rolo, and of course the nut from the pecan.  I have seen pictures with them using m & m's instead of the pecans, but have only eaten them with the pecans.  

I recently had fun making some Halloween treats. I had also planned to make some of the turtles but with a twist. I bought some pretzels and chocolate caramel cups and candy corn to try some for Halloween, but ran out of time that day and didn't get them made. 

Well, I finally took time this morning.  It really didn't take much time at all, but because I had never tried to make them before I did some experimenting along the way and only made a few at a time.

The first thing I tried was making them with a chocolate caramel cup I bought at Wal-mart.  They cost less than the Rolo so I thought I would try them.

   
Maybe if I were using a pecan half, it would have been good.  The problem was the Great Value Creamy Caramel is bigger than the Rolo.  So I had to use two candy corns.  The taste was fine though.

 I forgot that I also had bought a bag of Rolo a while back, so I decided to give it a try with the Rolo.

Some people use the small square pretzels, but I bought the small traditional shaped ones.
I guess I should tell you some particulars in case you have never made these.

You will need to make my treat:

small pretzels, chocolate caramel candies like Rolo, and candy corn 

parchment paper

cookie sheet

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Put Rolo on top of pretzel and cook in oven for 3 - 5 minutes....just to soften the Rolo.  (I cooked a small amount for 3 min but when I did a pan full, I waited 5 min.)  Let cool on pan.  (I was in a hurry when I made mine, so I transferred them to a plate and put them in the refrigerator so the melted chocolate would cool off faster.)

This is what they looked like using the Rolo.

 And a pan full....

As I was cleaning up my mess and placing the bags in my pantry, I saw a bag of mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that I bought a while back.  AND I thought.....I wonder if they would work?  Well, I didn't have time to try them but decided I would when I got back home.

I took the plate full to share with some friends and they loved them.  A couple of them had never eaten even the ones with the pecan halves before.  I told them my idea about trying the peanut butter cups and they felt like it should work.

The first thing I did when I got home was turn the oven on to preheat.  They really are so simple to make and take less time to make than it does for my oven to preheat.

So here is what I used

 
I placed the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup on the pretzel.....

 
and put them in the preheated oven.  I left them in for 3 minutes (since I only had four on the cookie sheet.)

When I took them out 

and pressed the candy corn down on top of them, I had to press fairly hard.

The top one on the right is the first one I pressed.  You can see it didn't "sink" as far down as the other three.  I think I should have left them in the oven for 5 minutes even with just four on the pan.  The peanut butter is denser and doesn't soften up as quickly as the caramel does.  


BUT, the best news, they taste really good.  It obviously has a different combination of tastes from the chocolate caramel candy, but I LOVED IT. 

I LOVE BOTH OF THEM.  I am so glad I got the idea to try the candy corn.  


Oh, my husband loves them, too.  He says he never had the ones with the pecan half.  I will have to make some more though if I want to enjoy them.....He hasn't left too many.