Happy Holidays, folks! I'd like to post a few things I have made before Christmas rolls around.
Seems like a few companies are manufacturing gluten-free rice crackers these days. We purchase the HEB brand but Nabisco is making some rice thins that are the exact same thing. And as I was whipping up a batch of regular, gluten-full toffee made with saltine crackers, I thought, "hey, I could so do this GF for jane!". So, I did. And it was mighty easy and tasty. I'm thinking these could be made vegan by using vegan butter, and they'd probably taste pretty darn good.
I call this "crack bark" because once you start, you can't stop. :) It's also fantastic with GF pretzel twists as the base, in place of the crackers.
Gluten Free Crack Bark
- 1 box GF, salted rice crackers or thins (or GF pretzel twists)
- 2 sticks unsalted butter (or vegan butter)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- cooking spray
- 2 cups Enjoy life mini chocolate chips (Or any GF chips, I just like Enjoy Life because they are devoid of the 8 common allergens)
Preheat oven to 350. Spray a jelly roll pan with cooking spray or rub with olive oil/butter. Lay out rice crackers to cover the entire pan in one layer. In a small pan, melt butter and brown sugar together and then bring to boil, stirring constantly. Since I'm a by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of chef, I don't get the candy thermometer out, and thus my caramel always turns out a little soft (which is still delicious and my husband says he prefers it this way), but if you're not familiar with cooking caramel, you might want to get the thermometer out and research the different stages of caramel. If you're going to eyeball it, cook the caramel until it's frothy and then keep going...about to the point you think you've messed things up. Then hurry it on over to the pan and pour all over the crackers, spreading it out as you go. Pop the pan in the oven for 5 minutes. When it comes out, sprinkle on the chocolate chips and watch them start to soften up. When they are spreadable, use an off-set spatula to smooth the chocolate evenly. Let cool, or if you're very impatient like me, put it in the fridge or deep freeze for a few minutes. Break it up with a fork and scrape it from the pan with a spatula. You won't be disappointed.