Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.
Assemble clusters by grouping pretzel sticks together. We had mini pretzel sticks, so we used 8-9 for each cluster. If you have normal sized pretzel sticks, you'll use 4-5.
Unwrap 8 caramels. Either flatten with your hand or use a rolling pin and do 3 at a time! There is no real method here- just flatten them until they're about twice the size of a quarter in the shape of an oval. Use kitchen shears to cut them length-wise.
Lay each piece of caramel on top of a grouping of pretzels.
Bake for 3-4 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool. {You can pull the parchment off the hot tray and let them cool on your kitchen counter.} If any pretzels came un-stuck in the process of putting them in/ taking them out of the oven, just pick up the pretzel and stick it on top of the caramel. After a few minutes they're cooled enough where the caramel stays together.
Melt the chocolate- go slow so that the chocolate doesn't seize! I like to melt mine first for 1 minute, then stir gently, then in 30 second increments after that, if needed. Sometimes as you stir gently, the chocolate will melt the remaining way and you're done! Adding the shortening helps to thin the chocolate out a bit and make it easier to dip treats.
Dip pretzels in the melted chocolate first covering one side, then the other, leaving one ends of pretzels uncovered.
Cover the chocolate ends with your favorite sprinkles.
