Peanut Butter Pretzel Pumpkins

It's fall!  Halloween is coming!  And one of the things that means is candy!  Another thing it means is pumpkins.  And better yet, when those two things combine.

I came up with these little Pumpkin Treats after reading one of my favorite baking blogs, Crazy for Crust.  Dorothy is crazy funny.  And she loves to bake.  What more could you ask for?  And when I saw these adorable Caramel Apple Pretzels for the beginning of the school year, I figured I could pumpkinify them for Halloween.  {One more thing about Dorothy, she is an awesome cheerleader for other blogs.  I find her comments all over the bloggosphere cheering on others in their crafting, baking, and cooking.  She's pretty awesome like that.}

These little candy coated pumpkins filled with pretzels and peanut butter are a perfect Halloween treat.  And if you like Take Five Bars, you will love these.  Even better?  They are very simple to make, and only have six ingredients.

Start by melting some creamy peanut butter in the microwave, not long at all, like thirty seconds.  Then mix it with the same amount of powdered sugar.  (Like 1/3 cup pb, 1/3 cup powdered sugar.  Got it?)

Resist the urge to just eat the mixture by the spoonful.  Or don't.  Just make sure you have enough powdered sugar and peanut butter when you start making these for a couple "false starts."

Now spread the mixture into the pretzels.  I did this a small spoonful at a time and used the spoon to just smoosh it in there, placing the peanut butter pretzels on to wax paper.

Freeze the pretzels on the wax paper for about 15 minutes.  Then, working only about two pretzels at a time, take them out of the freezer and dip them in the melted orange candy coating.  If your candy coating is too thick, try adding some vegetable shortening about 1/2 a teaspoon at a time until it is the desired consistency.

Before the orange coating sets, place a green candy coated sunflower seed at the top for the stem.  I found mine at World Market, and they are shockingly tasty.  If you can't find them, you could use some other candy, but the sunflower seeds added the perfect flavor to this.

Now, if you'd like, you can finish them off with some melted chocolate piped on (read: zip lock bag with tiny hole cut at the end).

But just keep in mind that they get sad when you eat them.

I'm not above making tiny pumpkins sad though.  In fact, I may or may not have made all these pumpkins sad.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Pumpkins
(makes about two dozen)

• 1/3 of a cup creamy peanut butter softened
• 1/3 of a cup of powdered sugar
• 24 pretzels
• 24 green candy coated sunflower seeds
• a bag of orange candy melts
• 1/4 of a cup melted chocolate (optional)

1. Mix the softened peanut butter and powdered sugar together.
2. Spread evenly in the pretzels, setting them on wax paper.
3. Put the pretzels (on the wax paper) in the freezer for 15 minutes.  While they are setting, melt the candy melts following the instructions on the bag.
4. Take two pretzels at a time out of the freezer and dip them in the chocolate.  Note: mine were cute on the front and a mess on the back, but delicious all around.  If you want them to look more perfect, you may want to do a second dipping in the orange melts once the first layer sets.
5. While the orange is still wet, place a sunflower seed at the top of each one for the stem.
6. If you wish, once the orange is dry, melt some chocolate, and put it in a zip loc bag, cutting a teenie tiny corner off the end.  Pipe on a little pumpkiny face.  Now cackle at the pumpkin as you devour him.