Chocolate, Pretzel and Peanut Butter and the Holy Trinity of Sugar, Salt and Fat

The end of my vegan pledge has come and I must share an amazing recipe with you: a chocolate, pretzel and peanut butter treat that is pretty impossible not to love.

I first read about this recipe in May last year from another blogger, Laura from Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish.

It’s a sort of assembly recipe that has 3 main ingredients: chocolate, pretzels and peanut butter.

I used Green&Black’s 70% cocoa dark chocolate, which is a really good quality organic and fairtrade chocolate and also naturally vegan as it’s not diluted with cheap milk like other brands. It’s absolutely delicious and more sustainable as it’s fairtrade and no pesticides were involved in its production.

 

Green&Black’s 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate

I used ready-made pretzels and my cupboard staple: Meridian “100% peanuts and nothing else” crunchy peanut butter.

Peanut Butter, Dark Chocolate and Pretzels – A Perfect Trio

The combination of the sugar from the chocolate, salt from the pretzels and fat from the cocoa and peanut butters makes this extremely hard to resist.

I read about the “holy trinity” of sugar, salt and fat from the Stylist’s Nigella Lawson edition in December 2011 and now…I understand.

Stylist – the Nigella Lawson edition

She mainly talks about salted caramel in her article, however they show other applicable combinations.

In her article she says: “[…]the foodstuff in question has an effect on the human brain rather like drugs. In a heady combination, they stimulate neurons, which release dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure centre”.

It is a lovely rich treat and a small bite will satisfy you – although it can be very addictive at the same time.

It’s easy to think that a vegan diet doesn’t provide lovely sweet treats but it’s actually very wrong. This beats most creamy dairy-eggy puddings and desserts! Everyone who tasted it loved it 🙂

Please find here the original recipe.

Ingredients

• 100g of chocolate, vegan  for extra sustainable goodness
• 50g of salted pretzels
• 3 tbsp of crunchy peanut butter

-Break the chocolate and melt it gently in a bowl over a pot of hot water so it does not burn;

-Once it’s melted, add 2tbsp of peanut butter and gently mix together;

-Crush most of the pretzel (leave a few whole) in a separate bowl and add to the chocolate and peanut butter mix;

-Cover a baking tray with some grease proof paper or baking paper and spread the lovely mix into a thin layer, use a spatula to ensure you don’t waste any delicious loveliness;

-Add the rest of the peanut butter to the chocolate layer by dropping it and then swirling it in with a knife, add the remaining pretzels and gently press them into the mix;

-Leave to cool and then place in the fridge to harden for a while – break a piece off and enjoy!!

Absolutely Delicious

As suggested in the original recipe, you could also add other ingredients to the mix such as crushed nuts, almond or other butters, dried fruit, cinnamon…it would be a lovely present too, and it looks so pretty!

If you love chocolate or would like to enjoy it even more there is an interesting article on National Geographic: How to Eat Chocolate.

Do you love chocolate?

Have you ever tried the sugar, salt and fat combination of flavours?