Christmas Crack

Warning: This Christmas bark is SUPER addictive! Saltines are covered with an easy caramel sauce, two types of chocolate, crushed and chopped peppermint, and assorted holiday sprinkles.

I’m sure you’ve seen something like this before – saltines coated in butter and sugar, and topped with chocolate. I’m not going to pretend I’m being revolutionary here, waving this around all “Look at how creative I am!!!” 

Nope, this is just something that’s easy to prepare, makes enough to serve a bunch at a party, and is super customizable.

Don’t like dark chocolate? Use milk chocolate or semisweet chocolate.

Don’t have any white chocolate? That’s cool, leave it off.

Have an aversion to holiday themed sprinkles because they remind you of that one time you chugged a bottle of them on a dare and now they make you queasy every time you see them? Omit those, or trade them for some holiday neutral sprinkles.

Okay, quick conversational detour: We had a… well, let’s call it an incident in our pantry a couple weeks ago where a mouse with a sweet tooth decided to ravage half of my baking supplies. We’re talking candy canes, Andes mints, Hershey’s kisses, powdered sugar…. yeah. So, we had to clean out the whole pantry and throw away a bunch of food, and in the process of doing so I rediscovered this container of dark brown sugar I’d been storing in the back in this basic IKEA storage container.

I bought a bunch of these containers back when I was a broke college student and needed a place to keep open bags of flour, sugar, etc., but I never banked on them being airtight or anything (because they certainly weren’t advertised as such). I had totally forgotten about it, and it’s been sitting in that spot in the pantry since July 2016. I cringed when I picked it up because I was sure that I was about to have a pain in the ass situation on my hands where I’d either need to chip away at it like a geologist or pour hot water in so that I could soften it enough to remove.

BUT GET THIS. I opened the container, and it was super soft. Like, fresh out of a new bag kind of soft. I’d put a brown sugar bear (aff link) in there with it, so I don’t know if I can attribute this success to the container, the bear, or both – but I was pretty damn pleasantly surprised.

Anyway, back to the recipe. I’ve been known to make several different chocolate layers (one of them being melted Nutella because NUTELLA), but that involves pouring the hot chocolate on top, letting it set and chill, adding more chocolate on top, setting and chilling, etc.

You can totally do that if you want, but it’ll take up more time than we’re talking about in this recipe.

I know some people are going to get all sensitive over the name of this: Christmas Crack. It’s a long standing, trending name that I personally attribute to the fact that you literally crack the finished product into pieces, so I used it. If it really bothers you, you can call it Christmas Bark. Or if using the word “Christmas” bothers you, too, you can call it Holiday Bark. Or a Magical Festive Sweet Sheet.

I’m not a politically correct person, nor have I ever been a very sensitive person, so that’s about all the guidance I can give with regard to the naming convention here.

[insert shrug emoji here]

Frankly, it doesn’t really matter what you call it, because it’s always a huge hit. So whip up a batch, crack it, package it up in cute containers and gift them to some friends. And then make another batch for yourself because you’ll have some serious FOMO if you miss out on this.

More bark recipes, please

• White Chocolate Cinnamon Roll Bark
• Melted Snowman Bark by Princess Pinky Girl
• S’mores Toffee Bark
• Gingerbread Cookie Bark by Kleinworth & Co
• Cranberry White Chocolate Bark
• Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Bites

Christmas Crack

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• Author: Leslie Kiszka
• Prep Time: 1 hour 55m
• Cook Time: 5 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours
• Yield: 30ish pieces 1x

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Description

This might have basic ingredients, but the result is anything BUT basic! Saltines are covered with an easy caramel sauce, two types of chocolate, crushed and chopped peppermint, and assorted holiday sprinkles!

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Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 40 saltine crackers
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 20 ounces dark chocolate
• 4 ounces white chocolate
• Crushed peppermint, chopped Andes mints, other various sprinkles

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and then place the crackers in a single layer (5 across, 8 down – or whatever fits your pan).
2. In a medium saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and salt. Heat over medium, stirring constantly until the mixture comes to a boil and starts to get darker. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.
3. Immediately pour hot mixture over the crackers in an even layer. Use a spatula to spread it evenly if need be.
4. Bake for 5 minutes.
5. While pan is in the oven, melt chocolate according to package directions in a microwave safe bowl or using a double broiler.
6. Remove pan from oven and immediately pour the chocolate on top in an even layer. Use a spatula to spread it across the top evenly.
7. Melt white chocolate according to package directions and place in a piping bag to drizzle across the top. Add anything else you want at this point – sprinkles, chopped Andes mints, crushed peppermint, etc.
8. Let the pan cool to room temperature and then place in the fridge to chill for at least an over, preferably overnight.
9. Use a knife to cut into pieces – it won’t break evenly and that’s completely expected and okay! Store in fridge until ready to serve, and enjoy. Beware: it’s addictive 🙂

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Equipment

Ghirardelli peppermint baking chunks

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brown sugar bear

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Ghirardelli dark chocolate baking bar

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Ghirardelli white chocolate

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Notes

Can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, or at room temperature for up to 1 week.

• Category: Dessert
• Method: Bake

Keywords: christmas crack, christmas bark, holiday bark, peppermint bark, chocolate bark

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