These days, my motivation to create in the kitchen is next to zero. A huge reason is the clean-up, but another reason I didn’t anticipate is the lack of big groups of hungry people to pass baked goods off to. When you spend most of your time with adults twice your age and your job is mostly sitting for 9 hours a day, everyone is permanently on a diet. Turns out your metabolism actually does slow down faster than you can say “401k”… so gone are the days of setting out a plate of cookies that disappear within an hour.
Given the time/energy payoff, there are no two words more likely than “easy” or “quick”to make me click a recipe link over anything else on the page. Even when I’m not particularly busy, I get such a satisfaction that comes from creating something in half an hour that’s just as delicious as the recipe that took me three days and an entire dishwasher load to make.
Enter this graham cracker toffee brittle: the perfect marriage of convenience and crowd-pleasing, irresistible to kids and adults alike (even those trying to stick to New Years’ Resolutions… oops). I’ve always loved toffee flavor, but I can’t stand the feeling of candy being stuck in my teeth. If you didn’t know how toffee is made, it’s basically boiled sugar; for this recipe though, the boiled sugar mixture is spread onto a layer of graham crackers before being baked. The texture of the crackers breaks up the stickiness, so it doesn’t feel like a cavity waiting to happen. Add a layer of of bittersweet chocolate (err on the side of bitter) and sprinkle of sea salt to break up the sweetness, and it’s entirely too easy to polish off a piece or three!
- 16 sheets graham crackers
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate I like to blend semi-sweet and chopped dark chocolate
- 1 cup almonds, chopped and toasted
- sea salt optional
- Line a large baking sheet with a baking mat or parchment paper. You can also use aluminum foil but will want to spray lightly with oil. Layer the graham crackers in a single sheet, touching, on the baking sheet and set aside. Preheat oven to 350F.
- In a medium saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar together over medium-high heat, and cook until bubbling. Simmer for 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour mixture evenly over graham crackers. Use a spatula to spread the mixture evenly to the edges of the crackers. Bake for 8 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven and immediately sprinkle chocolate over the top of the graham crackers. Let the chocolate chips/shavings sit for 2 minutes for the heat to melt them, then use a spatula to spread as evenly as possible. Sprinkle the chopped and toasted almonds on top, pressing down lightly with the spatula to make the pieces stick.
- If using sea salt (it cuts into the sweetness of the toffee perfectly!), sprinkle lightly over the chopped almonds. Let the graham cracker toffee sit for about 2 hours or until the chocolate hardens. I am usually too impatient to wait, so I pop the entire pan in the fridge for about 15 min. Once the chocolate is set, break the toffee into pieces and enjoy!
Adapted from Two Peas & Their Pod