Chocolate-Toffee Cracker Crunch

I have a long list of recipes to make, with separate documents on my computer, in my email and on my phone. The master list is a Google doc that features a host of items, many of which have spent untold lengths of time on the list just withering away. Some seem too complicated, some are not seasonal, some are for special occasions and some … well, I’m working. And soooo tired. (And yes, I’d like some cheese with that whine.)

This is not one of those recipes. I came across these chocolate-toffee saltines while perusing my new site, About.com, and decided I had to make them. Immediately. Salty crackers topped with caramelized brown sugar toffee and then a slick of bitter chocolate with crunch on top? Cooked in 20 minutes with items that are usually in my pantry? Heaven, is that you?

Of course in my world immediately means that weekend because, well, I’m working and see above. But every night, I went to bed dreaming of chocolaty, sugary, salty goodness and every morning I woke up thinking, “today’s the day I finally make those suckers.” Sunday morning I decided that the only way to make waking up at 7:30 a.m. for no reason acceptable was to make chocolate-toffee cracker crunch. Oh man, was I right.

While these were in the oven, I did a little Googling and realized that these crackers have been on the food blog radar for a while. (I am nothing if not always annoyingly fashionably late.) Most people opted for matzoh instead of saltines and went a little heavy on the salt in the toffee. My mom bought reduced-salt saltines — to which I say, what’s the point?* — so I added a little extra salt in the toffee and tossed some salt on the chocolate with the crushed saltines.

The other benefit of matzoh? Easy spreading. My saltines didn’t fit exactly into the baking pan and moved around a lot, making it impossible to spread the toffee without shifting a few. Since matzoh is bigger and flatter, you’ll likely have a much easier time with that than with saltines.

Final note (oh just start the recipe already!): this stuff is dangerous. You won’t be able to stop eating it. You will suffer serious remorse when you run out. You will dream about it night and day until you have more. Just sayin’

*I debated internally about this: can a saltine with no salt still be called a saltine? Or is it just a tine? I mean, there’s no salt. Am I just wasting my time on inanities when I should be working my way through my “to make” list?

Chocolate-Toffee Cracker Crunch
Adapted from About.com

The original recipe is a little light on ingredient instruction. I opted for dark brown sugar, bittersweet chocolate chips and added sea salt to the toffee (and sprinkled some on top at the end). Ultimately, go with what you have on hand. Also, adding some chopped almonds or pecans on top at the end would also be lovely.

– 1.5 sleeves of saltine crackers or 6-8 sheets of matzoh (enough to fill an 11-x-17 baking sheet)

– 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter

– 1 cup dark brown sugar

– 2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips

– 1 teaspoon sea salt, plus more for sprinkling

1) Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Place the saltines in a lined baking sheet, taking care to fit them as tightly as possible. Break saltines to fit edges or to fill any holes. Set aside the broken pieces for later.

2) In a small saucepan, melt the butter and sugar together over medium heat, stirring occasionally so that the caramel doesn’t burn. Heat the caramel to a rolling boil and boil for 2 minutes. Stir in the salt and then pour over the crackers, spreading with a heatproof spatula to cover any missed spots (the toffee thickens very quickly so make sure to do this fast).

3) Bake the toffee crackers for 10 minutes, until the toffee is bubbling. Remove from the oven and cool for 1 minute.

4) Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hot toffee. Let them sit for a few minutes, until they begin to melt. Spread the chocolate over the toffee in an even layer. Crush the leftover saltine pieces into small crumbs (or crush 5-7 saltines into crumbs) and sprinkle over the chocolate while it is hot. You can also sprinkle some sea salt over the chocolate.

5) Cool the crackers until the chocolate has hardened (the refrigerator works great here, if yours is empty enough to accommodate a baking sheet). Break into pieces and store in an airtight container for up to one week. Good luck getting it to last that long.

[print recipe in PDF form]