Making Christmas Crack with a Twist

If you are a regular to my blog you know that we often make Christmas Crack; in fact we make it so often we keep saying it needs a new name wince we don't just make it at Christmas!

We're already out of all the sweets we've been baking around here, since I do have three growing boys (it's so nice to have someone else to blame!) and thought we'd make some Christmas crack today but we wanted to make it extra special for the holidays so we decided to add peanut butter and sprinkles.  Usually we just make plain crack but something about the mix of peanut butter, chocolate and sprinkles makes it even more festive!

 To make Christmas Crack (with a twist) you will need:

1. 1 1/4 sleeves saltine crackers
2. non- stick cooking spray
3. 1 cup Butter
4. 1 cup Brown Sugar
5. Peanut butter; creamy
6. 12 oz package of chocolate chips (or 2 cups) 
7. Sprinkles 

  To Make Christmas Crack:

• Spray rimmed cookie sheet with non- stick cooking spray.  Today we tried lining our cookie sheet with tin foil and then spraying the tin foil with non- stick cooking spray.

• Line the cookie sheet with saltine crackers.  It usually takes a little over one full sleeve of crackers to fully fill the sheet.  

• In a small sauce pan heat 1 cup butter and 1 cup brown sugar over medium heat until melted and bubbly.  Let sugar/ butter mixture bubble for a full three minutes while stirring to prevent burning.  You want to make sure all the sugar crystals dissolve and a nice caramel has formed. 

• If adding peanut butter take the caramel off the stove and mix in 1 cup peanut butter until it's all nice and smooth.

• Pour mixture over crackers evenly (though don't worry about it being perfect).

• Heat crackers and caramel in a 325 degree oven for 5-10 minutes.  You'll see the caramel really start to bubble and spread out over the crackers.

• As soon as you take the crackers out of the oven sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the crackers.  Let the chocolate melt; the heat from the crackers is enough to melt the chocolate if you wait a few minutes.  I've also popped it back into the oven for 2-3 minutes to speed it up; just depends on how quickly you want to finish up.  

• Once all the chocolate is melted; gently spread it out trying to keep the crackers in a nice even layer.  Sprinkle on any toppings you might want to use.  Today we used holiday sprinkles.  I've also seen recipes made with crushed Heath bars, M and M candies, or even crushed peanut butter cups.  

• Stick the whole tray into the freezer for a few hours (4 hours or overnight).  
• Once frozen turn the tray over, peel off the tin foil and break the crack up into small bite sized pieces.  Store in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to a week (I guess it would last longer but I have no idea as it's never lasted longer than that in our house!)

Easy and delicious!!

Linking Up With: Over the Moon, Artsy Fartsy,