Easy Christmas “Cookie”: Cracker Candy
09. Dec, 2009 
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I think most of you are going “uh…what?”. I had never heard of cracker candy until about 3 or 4 years ago, when we did our first cookie exchange for our playgroup. My friend Jennifer did this for the exchange and I fell so madly in love with it. It’s probably just about the easiest Christmas cookie you can make (it took me twice as long to write this post as it did to make the actual candy) and super tasty.I have, in the past, made these and sent them to people who think I’m crazy when I talk about them. But the combination of the salty cracker and the butter/sugar that turns into a toffee, with the sweetness of the chocolate is so addictive! Here’s how to do it, complete with (bad) photos.
Spread out your crackers in on a jelly roll/cookie sheet pan. One with edges that you’ve lined completely with foil. Trust me on this, line the pan with foil. I decided to do a mix of soda crackers and club crackers, because I thought the buttery taste of the club crackers might be divine in this recipe.
Melt the butter, add the sugar and bring to a boil for three minutes. I think there’s an official candy-making term for this. Soft ball stage? I don’t know, I’m totally making crap up now.
Pour the butter mixture over the crackers. All over the crackers. You won’t be able to get them all coated just by pouring, you’re going to have to pour it as evenly as you can (I didn’t do that and made it a little harder on myself) and then go back and spread it out with a spoon.
It should look like this, all cracker surfaces covered with butter goo. Now put the crackers in the oven on 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Set a timer. You’ll be ticked if you leave them in too long and burn them. And that can happen.
While your crackers are in the oven, grab your commercial-size can of cashews–what do you mean you don’t have one? Everyone has one, right? Well, anyway, at this stage, if you’re going to use nuts like pecans, walnuts or cashews, even peanuts, you’re going to want to chop them up.
Like this. I used my handy countertop Black and Decker chopper. You’ll see this featured a lot in my cooking posts. I just chopped the cashews until they were appropriate for topping. I use cashews because I like them best, but you can use whatever you want. A cup of cashews unchopped resulted in enough chopped cashews for the entire pan of cracker candy.
Here’s a shot of the crackers in the oven. This was longer than five minutes because I had to run upstairs and tuck Brianna in.
I pulled them out of the oven, see how they look kind of brown? That’s not bad, but you don’t really want them to get any darker than that. Don’t try to go for any particular color. Just bake them for five minutes and pull them out.
Now sprinkle the chocolate chips over as soon as you pull them from the oven. I also had an industrial size bag of dark chocolate chips (hey, I shop at Sam’s Club) so I had to guess at how many to put on, but it’s hard to have too much chocolate. I use dark because it’s my favorite. The chips will begin to melt immediately, but get them sprinkled on and then worry about spreading. You have lots of time. I spread one side out, the other side looks like they’re still formed but really they’re melted too. Spread the chocolate evenly. I had to move some around because I had a bare spot after I was done.
Look to see if anyone is around.
Lick the spatula. You’re done with it, it’s okay. Now put it in the sink and wipe the chocolate off the corner of your mouth. Be glad no one saw you.
At this point, you can just leave your cracker candy naked. You don’t have to do anything more to it if you don’t want. You can be done now.
I added cashews to only half, because I do like naked cracker candy too. Instead of adding nuts, this year Jennifer added Christmas color candy sprinkles to hers. I almost put some fancy sea salt on one corner of this, because dark chocolate and sea salt? Yum. But I didn’t want to get the salt out (I’m lazy).
Now the hard part. Waiting. Let it cool in the fridge or freezer. Possibly overnight on the counter if it’s cool in your house, but you might need to stash it in the freezer for a few minutes to firm it up. You don’t want the chocolate to be soft at all. You want it totally set. Now break it apart. You can be anal and break it into the cracker squares, or you can just break it into random pieces. It really doesn’t matter. It all tastes the same. Addictive. Oh, and next time? I’m making them all with club crackers. The extra buttery taste made them insane!
Cracker Candy
35-40 Saltines
2 sticks of salted butter -do NOT use margarine
1/4 cup sugar
1 bag of milk (or semi or dark) chocolate morsels
Sliced almonds or any other nuts
Line cookie sheet with foil (sides too). Lay saltines side by side in one layer, sides touching. Melt butter, add sugar and boil 3 minutes. Drizzle over crackers, (keep crackers together). Bake 5 minutes @ 400°. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate over baked crackers. They will start to melt – spread over crackers. Sprinkle top with nuts. Refrigerate until cold, even overnight. Break into pieces.
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That looks absolutely delicious. Send some to me. You have my address
I make this all the time! Love it. So scrummy. Try 1 cup of brown sugar instead of regular sugar. It’s chewier and caramel-y and really good. And after you’ve spread out the chocolate, top it with crumbled Heath bars. I set my tray in the freezer for a couple of hours, then crack it into pieces and put in a plastic zipper bag, then back in the freezer it goes between servings.
I’ve had these before; they are yummy. So good in fact it’s shocking to find out that one of the main ing. is a cracker.
Yum. Going to make these for an office party.
These sound wonderful, love Gypsy’s adaption of the recipe too.
I always make candy for Christmas gifts, this is going to be my “new” candy this year.
I love that you used the Club crackers, I will try that next time. I have always used brown sugar, but I think I will use regular sugar from now on, because Jen’s have always been better than mine =)
I am SO trying this recipe!
)
Did this tonight for a thing tomorrow night. Stupendously easy, and fabulously yummy. Way below freezing temps, and a balcony that still has snow on it helps the cooling process
What an easy-peasy recipe, one that even I didn’t flub up!!
I think I’m going to experiment with brown sugar and graham cracker rather than club cracker next time I make these.
Thanks!
If you do graham crackers, you’re going to be missing the salt aspect of this, which is key (everyone at the party I took them to last night commented how much they liked the salt with the sweet) so you’ll need to make sure you put salted nuts on top or sprinkle with sea salt. I actually think graham crackers wouldn’t have the same appeal, but please report back!
I’m so glad you posted this recipe, Angie! Jen’s cracker candy was my absolute favorite from the Xmas party… I inhaled the baggie full and then immediately wished I had more! I’ll be making this soon!!
I was introduced to these by a coworker and she used graham crackers and did not put nuts on them. We nicknamed them crack because it is so addictive! Next pot luck she also made them with both saltines and graham crackers for comparison. Everyone prefered the grahams. I don’t know if it’s because we all were more used to that taste or if the saltines were a different texture. Both versions were good. Ive since been introduced to sea salted Dove chocolate caramels, by the same friend! (she’s a chocolate pusher, errr Dove chocolate party representative now) So I think next time I will sprinkle the graham cracker version with some sea salt! ooo I wonder how it would taste using a shortbread style cookie as a base? Hmmm…
I’m so trying this sometime before Christmas!
AAAHHHHH! Saltines, Club Crackers, Graham Crackers, shortbread cookies; 1/4 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar; dark chocolate, milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate; almonds, cashews, Heath bars, Dove chocolate caramels, sea salt!
Here I was all ready to thank you for the easy-peasy recipe and instead I’ll be spending the days from now till Christmas experimenting like some mad scientist trying to figure out which combination tastes best. ;-D
Angie,
I’d *love* to include this recipe in Coming Together: In the Kitchen!
Apparently this was the recipe of the weekend to try, because I’ve had something like ten people tell me they made it.
Bev, lol, sometimes it’s fun to do complicated things, but I think the beauty of this recipe is that even with only four or five ingredients and really simple steps, it’s still delicious. So any pressure anyone puts on themselves to fancy it up, well, it’s your own darn fault because it really doesn’t need it!
Alessia, you’re welcome to it!
Crap. Y’all’ve (don’t you love that contraction?) been talking about these for days & I’ve resisted. Now I’m going to have to go make some. I know I’ll thank you later, but right now I’m not feeling thankful for making me add one more thing to my ToDo list!! *scowl*
I’m making cracker candy again today, but with white chocolate and red/pink heart sprinkles for the short kid’s Valentines party. I’m using Saltines instead of club crackers this time (because I thought they were too rich) and I’ve learned two things:
1. Pouring the butter/sugar mix evenly is so much more vital with Saltines. The Saltines’ holes and texture suck up the mixture like blue water in an Always with Wings commercial and I was actually lifting crackers and scraping the stuff off the back to have enough.
2. My cookie sheet is not 40 Saltines in area. Cutting them or breaking them was a horror show. But a finely serrated bread knife actually saws them very cleanly.
I also learned that the white chips aren’t as melty-awesome as chocolate, but it’s still spreadable. Just a little more work.