Tell Me How You Really Feel: 5

Holy crap, it's October 1. I can't believe that, can you? With these weekly sessions of telling you how I feel every Wednesday, the time is flying by. I'd swear it was just yesterday I started writing the first post. By next week, I'll be old and gray and won't remember who I am.

Today's post is easy: I need to tell you how I feel about a particular recipe. A recipe so easy, you'd think that no one could mess it up. But I did, and it still turned out pretty yummy. So I'm sharing this short list of ingredients and how to make Salted Caramel Pretzel Bark.

You can find this recipe in many different forms out there in cyberspace, but if you want some decent pictures, head to the above link (I'm no photographer, as you know).

So here we go. This is what you need:

2 sticks of butter
1 cup of brown sugar
12 ounce bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 bag (8 ounces or so) mini-pretzels
9 X 13 pan
Aluminum foil
Course sea salt

This is what you're supposed to do:

1. Set your oven to 400 degrees. While the oven is heating, line the 9 X 13 pan with foil and spray with cooking spray (I coated it with butter). 
2. Spread a layer of pretzels on the foil. 
3. Melt the butter over medium low heat. When the butter has melted and begins to bubble, add the sugar. 
4. Stir the sugar and butter mixture to make sure it doesn't burn. The original recipe above says not to let the mixture boil, but you MUST let it simmer in order to thicken. So the secret is to stir it while it is lightly bubbling, but don't let it get to a rolling boil. Do this for about 3 minutes.
5. Pour the butter/sugar mixture over the pretzels and place into the oven for 5 minutes.
6. Take the pan out of the oven, sprinkle the chocolate chips over the caramel mixture, and put back into the oven for about 45 seconds.
7. Pull out the pan and use a spatula to spread the chocolate from edge to edge.
8. Sprinkle sea salt over the melted chocolate.
9. Place pan into the refrigerator for at least an hour, then break the bark into pieces.

Why am I telling you how I really feel about this? Because I made this recipe twice, messing up in a different way each time, and the bark turned out the same: pretty tasty for a five minute treat. In fact, Tim said, "I'll try not to eat the whole batch this evening."

So I'm grateful there's a recipe out there that can adjust to my whims and moods, because apparently, I can't talk to anyone anymore when I cook. If I do, I skip steps or read things incorrectly, and with this recipe, it just didn't matter. I like recipes like that, forgiving ones. And forgiving is something I could stand to do more of.