Are these not the cutest thing ever?!?

Okay, you’re right…THIS is the cutest thing ever.  But in terms of puppy-related desserts for people, Puppy Paws are it.  And the deliciousness-to-difficulty ratio is off the charts.  Three ingredients, 10 minutes, no more skill than unwrapping a piece of candy.

Mini-pretzels, Rolo candies, and pecan halves.  That’s it.  Oh, and don’t try to glamorize these little guys.  I tried to one year…expensive chocolate-covered caramels, with “sea salt” and dark chocolate…nowhere NEAR as good.  This is one recipe made for the grocery-store bag brand.

Your first step after heating your galley oven to maybe 150 degrees (or turning it off after making your weenie winks or anything else and just using the residual heat) is to unwrap and place a Rolo candy atop each mini-pretzel on an ungreased baking sheet.

This is where I learned that the world’s easiest recipe on land is not necessarily so underway!  Heeled over, these little guys slide all over the place at this stage…they are at least as peripatetic as an actual puppy.  So if you simply must make them at a 20-degree heel, use a rimmed-cookie sheet, and get from this stage to the oven as fast as you can.  Better choice: make them before you leave the anchorage!

After about 10 minutes in a 150 degree oven (shorter if hotter, and no higher than 250) they will look like this — structurally intact, but sort of “sweating.”

Place a pecan half on top of each candy and use it to squash the candy onto the pretzel.  You are aiming to push the chocolate-caramel through each of the holes, to cover them up.

Put the cookie sheet somewhere cold to firm them up.  This, too, is easier said than done on a boat underway…no room in the icebox, and if I put them up top, they’re likely to get devoured by the crew post-haste!

These haven’t been chilled yet, but you get the point…little puppy paws underneath, and seriously the most luscious thing you could pop into your mouth after 10 minutes of effort…salty, sweet, rich, crunchy, chewy…and they keep well in a ziploc or tupperware if you can hide it adequately.

A dessert with the Good Sailing Dog Seal of Approval.