Superstar Spotlight: Sheri Gilbert!

This Spotlight is on Sheri Gilbert! She is a terrific lady, who lives in Beaumont, Ca.  Sheri read about my blog 60 pot holders in 60 days, and was so inspired she wanted to do something to help out too!  Sheri decided to help two of the local students from San Gorgonio Middle School make marshmallow pretzel pops to sell at the Dickens Festival.  So despite the busy holiday season she set aside some extra time to have the kids meet with her and make these wonderfully sweet and gooey treats. Lucky me, my camera and I got to join in on the fun, and even got to try one too!!!
Ok, so what exactly are marshmallow pretzel pops? (besides delicious!) They are pretzel sticks topped with chocolate and candy coated giant marshmallows. They are also easy, and fun, to make!

First you need a few ingredients:

Pretzel rods (the longer and thicker kind)

Some form of Meltable chocolate chip
A candy sprinkle or topping
and the Giant size marshmallows.

Ok, first Sheri  put wax paper on every counter/surface that was going to be used. To anyone who is interested in making these this is a MUST, otherwise the clean up afterwards would be crazy. Then Sheri had the girls sort through all the pretzel rods. The great thing about this is that even if the pretzel rods are broken they can still be used! As long as there is at least 3 or 4 inches of pretzel sticking out after the marshmallow is stuck on it, it is still usable. Then after that she had the girls skewer the marshmallows with the pretzel rods.  This was done with lots of shrieks and giggles from them since not all the pretzels wanted to stay in one piece and would snap as they were being pushed into the marshmallow.  Fortunately most of them decided to snap at a reasonable length and therefore could be used to make another pop.

Then Sheri melted the chocolate and began dipping the marshmallowed end of the pretzels in.  Now a tip to anyone who wants to try this, make sure the chocolate is well melted! If it isn't the marshmallow gets kinda stuck and the pretzel will break!

The chocolated coated marshmallow pops were than quickly handed to the girls who rolled them in a variety of sprinkles. The girls discovered that patting the marshmallows in the sprinkles worked better to fully coat them then actually rolling them, this is also important to note if you are interested in making you own. The newly covered pops where then placed back on the wax paper to dry. 

After about 30 mins. the chocolate had hardened enough to wrap them up in plastic wrap and get them ready for the festival.

Don't they look wonderful? So be sure to come by the festival and get some! Make sure you come early or they'll all be gone! If you happen to see Sheri be sure to tell her thank you. The children definitely appreciate the time and effort she put in to helping them make these wonderful creations for their event! Thanks again Sheri!

So every once in a while I would like to acknowledge someone that has gone out of their way to help out a local school. If you know someone, and would like to have me interview them for a Spotlight email me at aimeelavalle@gmail.com