This is a post for my young friend (the lovely Ms.M) who shares my love of this horrifically addictive treat. I promise I’ll get to some healthy posts later – next week. Where did I get such a ridiculous name as ‘Chocolate Crack? If The Milk Bar in NYC can sell ‘Crack Pie’ (for $44!) that people just can’t stay away from, then we can all have our favorite crack-like foodie fixations. But honestly it comes from reading the blog from King Arthur Flour, one of my favorite companies in general – great products, great recipes and funny posts on the Flourish blog, and they’re a ‘B Corporation'(good to the planet and their employees). They posted an ‘Everything Bark’ and it’s so similar to another packaged treat from a certain store I have an affinity for.
I don’t want to upset them, but I’ll show you the bag and, well, if you’ve had it, then you’ll understand. If you don’t have one of these stores (T.J’s) nearby then … I’m sorry. (we just got one this year – yes, I’m a junkie)
The Flourish Blog post had a comment section where one of the contributors described the aforementioned ‘yellow bagged product’ as “that crack in a bag of which you speak”. I nearly laughed myself out of my chair. And I’ll bet you thought yarn store employees were boring ! These ladies were funny as they exchanged descriptions of how much they loved this stuff.
I can’t thank them enough for the recipe. I mean, it’s really pretty simple – but this means I didn’t have to waste time and ingredients working it all out. Speaking of ingredients, I laid them all out and went, OMG – it’s a party in the making!
With that said, I did make some changes. The post recipe only used almonds, but the bag lists peanuts too. So I added them to mine. The post mentioned the option of smoked almonds, not on the bag, but Ooooo that could be gooood ! And it was! That’s why I named it Campfire, because the smoky surprise works so well with the chocolate. You just wouldn’t believe it. So, go raid the ‘kids section’ of your pantry and come along – we’re gonna make us some chocolate crack !
(Cowboy) Campfire Bark:
1 – 1/2 Cups Chocolate chips (I used 1 cups 60%Bittersweet Ghiradelli, and 1/2 cup Semi-Sweet)
1/4 Cup Toffee Bits (or just a Heath bar crunched up)
1/2 Cups Nuts (apprx 1/8 cup peanuts, 1/8 cup almonds, 1/8 cup smoked almonds), chopped
4 Creme-Filled Chocolate Sandwich cookies, broken up
2/3 Cup Salted Pretzels, broken up
Step 1:
Mix the nuts as you like – more peanuts, less peanuts and more smoked almonds – whatever
Step 2:
Melt that chocolate. You can do this in the microwave (in a GLASS bowl) on 30 sec intervals, or on the stove with a double-boiler. I happen to have a super low burner for delicate things – like chocolate. Speaking of chocolate, I mixed these two because semi-sweets have a bit too much sugar in them, but the bittersweet is too, well, bitter. I don’t have time to order ‘Peters Burgundy Chunks‘ chocolate from KAF – which is fabulous. Today, I’m going with what’s available local.
Step 3:
Gather up all the crushed and crunchy bits.
Step 4:
Add 1/2 of the toffee bits and 1/2 nuts to the melted chocolate. Next time I might add in some of the pretzel pieces too.
Step 5:
You can spread it out on most any parchment cookie sheet you have – it won’t go far. About 8″square will do – or use a cake pan. Now sprinkle on the rest of the goodies.
Step 6:
Top it off with an optional sprinkle of sea salt flakes – so good. OK, now set it aside, or if you live in Florida, park it in the chill chest for a bit.
Once it’s solid, you can take it out, break it up and enjoy! The smoky almonds are awesome in this. Something that’s unexpected – delightfully so.
That’s it – go and refill that bag so you can hide it in the back of the fridge or pantry for later consumption.
- 1 - 1/2 Cups Chocolate chips (I used 1 cups 60%Bittersweet Ghiradelli, and 1/2 cup Semi-Sweet)
- 1/4 Cup Toffee Bits (or just a Heath bar crunched up)
- 1/2 Cups Nuts (apprx 1/8 cup peanuts, 1/8 cup almonds, 1/8 cup smoked almonds), chopped
- 4 Creme-Filled Chocolate Sandwich cookies, broken up
- 2/3 Cup Salted Pretzels, broken up
- Crunch up the ingredients and set aside.
- Melt the chocolate.
- Add 1/2 the nuts and toffee bits to the chocolate.
- Spread onto a parchment sheet or pan.
- Top with remaining bits and allow to cool.
- Break up and consume!
- This makes about 14oz. and that's more than the 9 oz that came in the bag - so if you're refilling a 'bag' you'll have some leftover for sampling. (note, I did not say 'sharing')
