Easy as 1, 2, 3....or not

This weekend I tried my hand at making the pretty in pink pretzels I have been so excited about. It turns out Rachael Ray's three ingredients and three directions were a little much for me...but after a few tries I got some really cute pretzels made. Here's what I learned:

• After dipping the pretzels in chocolate, they were a little top heavy and didn't just "hang off the side of a cooling rack." Instead they tumbled over the side of the cooling rack and got the chocolate all smooched up. So I had to prop the pretzels up in between the bars in the cooling rack. (And, of course, a few times one would fall over and have a domino effect on all of them.)
• In the instructions, it says to let the chocolate set about 30 minutes before sprinkling with sugar...but when I tried to sprinkle the sugar on after about 10 minutes, the chocolate was completely set and the sugar wouldn't stick at all. I ended up letting each pretzel set about 30 seconds to one minute instead.
• The sugar on mine did not end up looking nearly as bright as in the picture. If I make them again, I might use white chocolate instead to make the sugar stand out more, use decorating sugar that is more coarse, or skip the sugar altogether and just use food color to tint white chocolate the color I want. (I think the last option would be really cute for a baby shower since the colors tend to be lighter and you could use a few different colors.)

So I guess I am not very easily discouraged because I am already excited about trying out another Rachael Ray recipe: monkey bread minis. This one has more ingredients and steps, so we'll see how it goes. I guess I'm a sucker for cute, sugary foods. :)

by Vivian Jao, found via rachaelraymag