I am so excited to have finally gotten to this recipe, and now that I’ve tasted them, I’m a little sad I didn’t make them sooner!  They are so crazy delicious.

These are from the amazingly awesome Outlander Kitchen Cookbook, by Theresa Carle-Sanders.  I have never been paid by her to promote this book, I just really believe it’s one of the best I’ve ever used.

For 24 balls, you will need:

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling

1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1 tablespoon softened butter

3/4 cup warm (not hot) water

7 ounces good chocolate, or 24 hershey’s kisses, rollos, or hershey’s solid milk chocolate eggs.  Or fun size chocolate bars cut into small pieces.  Go nuts.

1 egg

3 tablespoons of baking soda

Combine the flour, salt, yeast and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer. 

Add the warm water and stir with the paddle attachment until it comes together in a ball.  Switch to the bread hook and knead on medium for 7 minutes.  The dough should be very firm.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 60-90 minutes.

After 90 minutes are up, divide your dough into 24 equal pieces.  It’s best to do this by figuring out the total weight of your dough and dividing it by 24 to figure out the weight of each piece so they are identical, but I didn’t do that.

For each pretzel ball, flatten it with your hand, then place one chocolate piece in the middle.  If you’re using hershey’s kisses, cut (or bite) off the pointy tip and then set it right-side up in the dough.

Using your fingers, fold the dough around the chocolate and pinch the ends together at the top.  Place each ball seam-side down, and cover with a towel for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and put a pot of water to boil.  Make an egg wash using your egg and one teaspoon of water.  Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper and get your coarse salt ready.

Once your water is boiling, add three tablespoons of baking powder and gently place five or six balls, seam side up, into the water.  Flip them after 30 seconds, then remove them to your parchment-lined baking sheets after 30 more seconds.  Brush each ball with the egg wash then sprinkle with a little salt.

Bake the buns for 15-18 minutes.  As you can see, some of mine burst through the seam.  But they’re still ok!

Once you’ve waited the requisite 20 minutes for the molten chocolate to cool down, you can bit into them.  I was honestly shocked at how good these are.  The only ones that were not great were the peppermint/white chocolate hershey kisses. The milk and dark chocolate ones were fantastic.  While not exactly easy to make, they are worth the effort, I promise!

Everyone in the family devoured them, including Little Bread Dude, who is pretty finicky with his sweets.