When I first saw this recipe in a newspaper clipping from the 1950’s, I was terrified it was going to use some sort of savory cracker. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that graham crackers made up the “cracker” part in the recipe. I was also intrigued and wanted to make it as soon as possible. Plus, it has chocolate chips in it, so there was that too.
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 6 whole graham crackers
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts
- Boil together sugar and butter over medium heat for two minutes. Cool.
- Place graham crackers tightly in a shallow pan and pour sugar mixture over them. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 5 mins.
- Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts over the top. Allow bars to cool and cut into desired shapes.
So, I find this kind of hilarious. When I previously made a bar cookie that called for whole graham crackers, I put the crackers too close together, which made the whole deal not stick together properly and basically ruined the cookies. This time I tried to learn from my mistake and gave these guys some breathing room.
Which, as it turned out, was the completely wrong thing to do. AGAIN. So, if you are making this, make sure you cram those crackers together as much as possible.
Also, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I assumed that the “double squares” they referred to meant a half of a graham cracker. You can blame that on lack of sleep from a new baby! But now that I think about it I am pretty sure they meant 6 whole graham crackers, not 6 graham cracker halves. So what you are looking at here is 6 whole graham crackers with a doubled amount of the boiled sugar topping on it. Oops. Also, I don’t think I let my sugar mixture cool long enough. Oops again!
But they seemed to come out okay in the end. I think. Honestly, they were just floating in the syrup, so I don’t really know what that means.
But then they were covered in chocolate chips and nuts, which hid my mistake with deliciousness.
I used some little round cookie cutters to cut out a few shapes from the graham cracker halves, but overall the boiled sugar topping stayed pretty sticky even after cooling, so I wasn’t able to cut them like a bar cookie. And when you tried to lift out the cracker pieces whole they crumbled.
“What is this? A graham cracker?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“It’s not bad.”
“Really, do you like it?”
“Well…it’s a graham cracker with chocolate chips on it. So, yes.”
The Verdict: Really Good if you like graham crackers!
From the Tasting Notes:
These were really good. Very sweet with a slight toffee flavor and delicious with the chocolate and nuts, but very difficult to cut and eat. In the end they were basically just fancied up graham crackers. However, I made these and two other kinds of bar cookies for a 4th of July party, and these were by far the favorites, especially among the kids even though they were difficult to eat. So if you want to make them, make sure to use the right amount of graham crackers and make sure you cram together as many crackers in the pan as you can before pouring on the boiled sugar!
Looks yummy! They would even be good with vanilla Graham crackers too!
Haven’t even had breakfast yet, but those are looking like good breakfast food about now! Honey Maid cinnamon graham crackers are my fave (can polish off a sleeve of them in one sitting). I’ll try this using them.
Actually, this recipe (or something very similar) is something my mom picked up along the way, except that it uses saltine crackers instead of graham crackers.
It’s not as strange as it sounds; they add some salt, and tone down the sugar from the toffee and the chocolate. They don’t really taste like much on their own either.
One more thing- cook the sugar until it’s a good medium brown. That stuff in your recipe seems like it would just be sweet; you can go farther and get a lot more flavor.
We make the saltine ones too, most people call it “Saltine Toffee”. We spread the chocolate chips smooth after they melt and then add the nuts to the top. Let it cool and break it up. The salt is really what “makes it”.
Always a big hit at school bake sales.
(And Hi from a fellow Michigander!)
Those do actually look pretty tasty. But considering the ingredients, it’s also hard to go wrong with all of that yummy!
I have had something similar to this, but made with Club crackers. Not bad, the buttery flavor of the crackers and the salt went well with the rest of the toppings.
My Mother-in-law makes these at Christmas time and they are reminiscent of english toffee but mostly they just make me wish I had made english toffee.
These are so much better made with Saltine crackers. The salt from the cracker really brings out the flavor of the toffee and chocolate. I make it at Christmas time and thus it has been dubbed Christmas Crack in my house.