Easy Gluten Free Chocolate-Covered No-Bake 3 Ingredient Christmas Desserts

If the combination of peppermint and white chocolate isn’t the secret sauce for Christmas spirit I don’t know what is. I was instantly transported to that magical wintry wonderland white Christmas feeling of childhood—until our first born started taking handfuls of sprinkles straight to the dome. “Mama, the sprinkles taste like sugar!” That will bring you back to real-life Christmas real fast. On the plus side, she’s actually having a magical Christmas of childhood making these easy gluten free chocolate-covered no-bake 3 ingredient Christmas desserts, so it’s all good. 

Second breakfasts of gluten free sprinkles, pretzel rods, and “Oreo” crumbles aside, this is a great holiday activity that kids can get involved with. Our 5 year old loves to help me in the kitchen, but since cooking usually includes measuring and timing, and very hot things, and being somewhat precise, I try to choose the moments I let her help wisely. This was one of those moments. 

Could our treats have turned out a little more professional looking without her help? Heck, yes. Can you really tell that much when all the treats are together in a pretty Christmas platter or bowl? Not really! 

I’d like to say that this was so easy that a 5 year old could do it, but the chocolate coating part does take an adult’s or older child’s touch if you don’t want a total mess. But she loved doing the topping part, we were a good little assembly line!  

The idea behind this post was that I wanted to give a bunch of different ideas for easy, chocolate covered, gluten free no-bake 3 INGREDIENT desserts, with these simple steps:

• #1 – Pick a yummy gluten free base
• #2 – Smother yummy gluten free base with melted chocolate
• #3 – Cover yummy treat with festive topping

This can be as SIMPLE or as EXTRA as you want to make it, with as many combinations as you choose. Sure, the platter above with all the different chocolate covered gluten free pretzel rods and “Oreos” looks super sweet, no pun intended. But, look at the bowl below of chocolate covered “Oreos” with sprinkles and crushed candy cane by themselves. Are you still super pumped to eat and impressed by the pageantry? Heck, yeah! 

So, whether you want to make one combination or all of them, it’s going to be a quality gluten free dessert to bring to a party—or to enjoy at home in front of a warm fire with some hot chocolate.  

I also want to point out that this post is not set up like a normal recipe post with exact quantities needed, this is more of a choose your own adventure using the combinations below. 

But, to give you some idea of the quantities needed…We went through about a bag and a half (15 oz) of white chocolate chips and 3/4 of a bag of semi sweet chocolate chips (7.5 oz) to do a package of Glutino “Oreos,” and a bag and a half of GF Snyders Pretzel Rods. One bag of pretzel rods may have sufficed if so many wouldn’t have been broken, but since a lot of them were, we ended up dipping into the second bag for some whole rods. 

The semi sweet chocolate melted to a much thinner consistency than the white chocolate, so it definitely went a longer way and we used less of it. 

I go over some great tips to get ‘er done as efficiently as possible below too.

With that said, here are all the wonderful combinations you can create using combinations of just 3 ingredients!

Choose Your Own Adventure Mix & Match Gluten Free No Bake Dessert Ingredients

As you can imagine by looking at this table, you can go as simple or as crazy as you like. 

So pick your favorite combination and make it as easy on yourself as possible or go all out! 

Even sticking to just pretzels, white chocolate and toppings looks pretty dang delicious and pretty. 

I think I may even freeze what we’ve made so far and add some chocolate covered marshmallows and graham crackers to the spread before our Christmas party! Some nuts with white chocolate and cinnamon sound super good too.  

You could even throw in a bowl of caramel dipping sauce on the side, or dip a caramel layer before the chocolate.  

You can also use extra already made GF products to supplement your tray, as discussed more below!

But, “gluten free Oreos, pretzel rods, graham crackers, and marshmallows, aren’t these hard to find!?!?” you may ask. Well, the answer is, not really!! 

Here are the details on gluten free products you can use for your different layers and where you may find them: 

THE BASE

Gluten Free “Oreos” – I do prefer Glutino’s version of the “Oreo”—Glutino’s Chocolate Vanilla Crème Cookie. The real gluten free Oreos are certified gluten free, but they do contain oats, so if you are hyper sensitive you may want to still stay clear and go with Glutino as well. My kids and I love Glutino, and they are even better covered in chocolate of course! Glutino is pretty prevalent at most grocery stores as well.

Pretzel Rods – Snyder’s of Hanover’s gluten free pretzels are the bomb. It’s hard for me to think of anything that’s as similar tasting to its gluten counter part. They really have that pretzel texture nailed down. I see the smaller gluten free pretzels in stores all over the place and was worried I might have trouble finding the rods, but I found them at my local Meijer on my first try. 

Graham Crackers – I love me some Schar Honey Grahams and most Schar products for that matter. They even make a chocolate covered kind, but as these seem significantly more difficult to find than the plain ones, why not make your own chocolate covered grahams!? 

Marshmallows – According to celiac.com Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows do not contain gluten and are also not subject to gluten cross-contamination during production. It truly can be a marshmallow world in the winter as Dean Martin sings.    

THE COATING

There’s not too many choices for your middle layer ingredient, but when it’s chocolate and white chocolate do you really need anymore? 

White chocolate just screams Christmas time to me. I have fond memories of eating white chocolate pretzel rods as a child in my gluten days. It’s so tasty with peppermint and looks fancy with holiday sprinkles on top. You can also mix food coloring in it. It’s got a lot going for it. 

Enjoy Life is a no-brainer, their White Baking Mini Chips and Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mini Chips are free from 14 allergens as well as made in a dedicated nut free and gluten free facility.

Don’t you hate it when you grab a bag of something out of the cabinet for nutritional info to help write your blog and you end up eating a handful of chocolate chips? I should put these away now. 

THE TOPPING

These babies are like the ornaments on your tree.  There’s a lot to choose from too. If you’re into baking, you might even have some of them readily available. Different topping choices include: 

Sprinkles – Betty Crocker sprinkles are gluten free and even produced on a dedicated line that does not process peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, milk or eggs. Betty has a lot of varieties too. I even found some that look a lot like crushed up candy canes, just in case you find these before you find gluten free candy canes. I love the green and red sprinkles for Christmas time, but rainbow against white chocolate would look so cute for Birthday party treats!

I guess I should have expected this, but until you discover Betty Crocker’s sprinkles, gluten free sprinkles are not the easiest thing to find. Hannah, the awesome baker at Sweetly Gluten Free in Northern Kentucky, so sweetly pointed me in the right direction for gluten free sprinkles. I wish I would have had time to snag some of her frosted cookies for the middle of my platter, because her stuff is as delicious as it is pretty. 

Candy Canes – Did you know some candy canes could contain wheat?!? I know!! What will we have to worry about next?! It really does go to show that you have to check EVERYTHING you eat. YumEarth Candy Canes definitely seem to be the safest brand of candy cane that I’ve found.

Food Coloring – Betty Crocker scores again. Their Gel Food Coloring is also gluten free and looks great when mixed with white chocolate for a green and red festive drizzle.  

We ended up doing chocolate and white chocolate covered pretzel rods, and chocolate and white chocolate covered “Oreos” with a variety of sprinkle, crushed candy cane, and crushed “Oreo” toppings. Here are some valuable tips we picked up along the way: 

Tips for Making These Yummy Chocolate Covered Gluten Free Christmas Treats

• Warm the chocolate in the microwave starting with 30 seconds, and then in 20 second intervals, stirring and checking smoothness each time. Things can go south fast here, so keep an eye on it. 

• Keep the chocolate warm as you work by popping it back in the microwave every once in awhile. It’s so much easier to get an even coating when it’s at the right consistency. I think I warmed ours 3 or 4 times throughout the process.

• We split our treat making up over 2 sessions—white chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate. Trying to keep 2 different bowls of chocolate warm and at the right consistency simultaneously would have been Christmas craziness. 

• Spreading out some non-stick baking parchment paper was a great way to give us a large non-stick work space that was easy to clean up.

• Snyder’s Gluten Free Pretzel Rods are shorter than regular gluten ones, be careful not to break them. Keeping chocolate warm will help with this so you don’t have to force it on.   

• Lay the “Oreo” in a bowl with the melted chocolate and use a fork to spread chocolate over it. Then fish it out, scraping any drippings off on the lip of the bowl. 

• Sprinkle the chocolate coated treat with toppings right away for best sticking potential. 

• We found that a food processor was the best way to crush up candy canes. Just don’t let your little helper be in charge of pushing the button or you’ll quickly end up with candy cane powder rather than crushed candy cane. 

• If you don’t have a food processor, I also tried putting the candy cane in a ziploc and chopping/crushing with a knife, which was a little tedious and resulted in pretty big chunks, but still doable. 

• The crushed candy cane hardens back together QUICKLY, so don’t crush it up too far in advance, not even an hour or so.

More GF Goodies to Add to Your Platter for Zero More Work

You’ve already done work, what’s better and easier than weaving in some premade GF goodies into your platter? Check out this pic with Siete Grain Free Mexican Wedding Cookies in the middle. 

The powdered sugar on Siete’s Mexican Wedding Cookies gives them a snowy look that goes nicely with the whole theme. I love Siete’s products and just signed up for their newsletter.  These cookies could be a great addition to your dessert platter or for just blowing through half a bag after dinner some night, I’ve been there, these are so ADDICTING. I’ve had luck finding them at Meijer, but they are also available at Kroger, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Target.   

Skinny Dipped Almonds would be another great addition to your Christmas dessert platter and are available all over the place.  You could also throw some candy canes on there just as they are or get some lovely frosted cookies from your local gluten free baker. Let me know if you think of any other great additions! 

Have a Merry Merry Christmas! This was a really fun post to make. I’m not sure what else I’d rather being doing except for maybe eating some killer nachos. I hope you have as much fun making and eating these delicious gluten free chocolate-covered no-bake 3 ingredient Christmas desserts as we did!

It’s also not too late to make those gluten free catering plans. Check out my post on gluten free catering here.

Lastly, don’t miss out on a single post from the Gluten Free Gopher. Sign up for my newsletter now to be the first to know about new posts and other can’t miss gluten free info.