Most of the recipes I have made for you are Asian inspired dishes or traditional Asian dishes, but today I want to dive into the creative and colorful food of America.
The Belly Button snack has become a favourite around the children in my family, so we wrap them up as gifts whenever we plan on visiting.
This quick and simple recipe can be made by your kids too! There is nothing tricky involved, and the most dangerous part will be putting the belly buttons in the oven. Help get your kids into the kitchen with this fun recipe!
Belly Button Recipe
A quick glance at the ingredients list will tell you that nothing in this recipe is homemade, apart from the assembly of the belly buttons. If you want something a little more challenging, scroll down to my bonus recipe which teaches you how to make your own pretzels!
Your children might need an extra hand making these hard bready treats, and they can be difficult to get small enough to fit in with the Belly Button design, so you might want your kids to join in during the assembly stage only.
Ingredients:
- Plain M&Ms – 25
- Hershey’s Kisses – 25
- Small Pretzels – 25
Method:
- Heat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Spread the pretzels on a cookie sheet, make sure to give them an even space.
- Unwrap the Hershey’s kisses and place them in the middle of the pretzels.
- Put the pretzels in the oven for 5 minutes, or until the kisses and pretzels are soft.
- Take out of the oven and add an M&M piece to the top of the Hershey kiss.
Wasn’t that easy! Once these Belly Buttons have cooled you can wrap them up and put them into little bags to give to kids after a birthday party, or you can pass them to the family to snack on as a treat!
If this recipe seems too easy, then check out this pretzel recipe I’ve made. You can adapt the flavor to add your own spin on the Belly Button snack or to simply serve them as a pretzel on their own!
Hard Pretzel Recipe
I’ve put together the ingredient list to make between 20 and 25 small pretzels, perfect for the Belly Button recipe. If you’re new to making pretzels, you might want to make more than 25, just in case the pretzels burn or come out soggy.
Ingredients:
- All Purpose Flour – 1 Cup
- Instant Yeast – ½ Tsp
- Salt – ⅓ Tsp
- Sugar – ½ Tsp
- Warm Water – ⅓ Cup
- Water – 2 Cups
- Baking Soda – 1 Tbsp
- Egg Wash (to brush the Pretzels with)
- Rock Salt (to sprinkle on the Pretzels)
Method:
- Mix the warm water, sugar, and yeast together thoroughly, and let it rest for 2 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, mix the flour and salt together.
- Combine the flour mixture and the yeast mixture and mix thoroughly.
- Knead until you get a smooth and elastic dough.
- Oil a bowl, and then place the dough in the lubricated container.
- Cover with a plastic wrap and leave it for 1 to 2 hours or until the dough doubles in size.
- Take the dough out of the bowl, cut it in half, and roll both halves into a log.
- Cut the logs into one inch long and two inch wide pieces.
- With every piece, roll the dough into long and thin rope-like shapes.
- Shape each rope into a pretzel.
To make the pretzel shape, you will need to take one end of the rope and bring it to the center. Then take the other end of the rope and cross it over the first one, making sure to also lay the end in the center.
Lastly, you need to press these ends into the middle of the dough to seal in the shape.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Put the pretzels onto a baking sheet and make sure to give them a lot of room.
- Boil the 2 cups of water and mix in the baking soda. Stir until it has dissolved.
- Using a slotted spoon, delicately lower the raw pretzels into the boiling water. Don’t overfill the pot.
- When a pretzel has boiled for 10 to 20 seconds, or when the pretzel starts to float, remove it from the water and place it back on the baking sheet.
- Brush each pretzel with the egg wash and sprinkle on the rock salt to your taste.
- Put the baking tray with boiled, egg washed and rock salted pretzels into the pre-heated oven for 40 minutes.
If you like your pretzels soft, you can cook them for 30 minutes instead.
- Once they are hard and crunchy, bring them out of the oven to cool.
To make the Belly Button snacks, you will need the pretzels to be completely cool, so they have hardened and settled into their shape before you reheat them.
If you want to make these pretzels without adding them to the Belly Button recipe, you can play around with the sprinkles you put on top. If you want something sweet, try brown sugar. My personal favorite is using cinnamon sugar!
Cinnamon sugar on a pretzel just screams Fall to me, making these the perfect homemade snack for Halloween.
In fact, let me know what other suggestions you have to make these pretzels and belly button snacks great for the other amazing American holidays!
