Caramel Corn Pretzels

I love sweet and salty together! If you are the same, you will love these sugar coated chewy pretzels.  I was very excited because I finally was able to use my candy thermometer that my mother had given me several years ago.  I have to warn you that these pretzels are very sugary and addicting.  After making these I took them up to the school to Joselyn Meader, my favorite custodian, for an evening snack.  I spoke to her an hour later, and she said, "I can't stop eating them, they are good!" I love sharing my treats with Joselyn.  She (along with my students) is one of my biggest food critics, since I know she will be honest!  I took them to school on Monday - they were a big hit! Students and staff loved the pretzels them as well! "They are delicious!" Alley Pipes stated!

Ingredients

• 15 ounces mini twist or waffle pretzels
• 2 cups mixed nuts (I used walnuts and pecans)
• 1 cup unsalted butter (two sticks)
• 2 cups packed dark brown sugar (I used light since that is all that I had)
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 pinch salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
2. In a 9x13-inch baking dish, combine the pretzels and nuts. Set aside.
3. In a large saucepan combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt. Stir together over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and cook until very thick and at the 'firm ball' stage (248 degrees F). Remove from heat, pour over pretzel/nut mixture and mix all together.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes. Remove from oven and spread out on wax paper to cool.

Note:  The sugar coating is very thick, which I think you could add more pretzels.  I think next time that I am going to use a bigger pan, such as an aluminum roaster pan and bake the pretzels for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  To try something different, I drizzled melted semi-sweet chocolate over some of the pretzels and dipped others in the chocolate (after the coating on the pretzels had cooled completely).  I also placed some of the sugar coated pecans on top of the chocolate dipped pretzels.  Everyone that tried the pretzels thought that they were delicious! - even asking for the recipe.

I made these pretzels again, and halved the caramel recipe (since the first batch was very sugary) - using waffle pretzels this time, not using the entire bag of waffle pretzels.  Halving the recipe, didn't seem like enough sugar coating.  Will keep the recipe the same in the future.