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You’ll love this salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy saltine cracker candy, sometimes known as Christmas Crack, and you can make it in 15 minutes with just 5 ingredients!
I grew up eating Saltine Cracker Candy every Christmas. We stored the candy, and all of our holiday goodies, on the patio outside (or in the garage if it was going to be REALLY cold that night). Everything went in leftover ice cream pails or plastic tubs.
My favorite thing to do was build the cookie plate for Christmas morning. I’d choose a few of each and pile them on the large glass Christmas plate, building a collection of the best offerings from my mom’s annual baking day.
Christmas Crack always went on top and it was always the first treat to disappear. To this day, the cookie plate remains my favorite holiday tradition.
Table of Contents
Christmas Crack ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
- Chocolate: Sometimes chopped bar chocolate works better than chocolate chips. To melt the chocolate, you can either 1). melt it in the microwave and pour it over the top, or 2). sprinkle the chips on the hardened caramel topping, let them sit for a minute to melt, and then spread the softened chocolate chips with a spatula.
- Toppings: Try chopped pecans, pretzels, OREOs, M&Ms, toffee bits, peanut butter cups, toasted coconut, coarse sea salt, candy canes, or drizzles of white chocolate. Or, just leave it plain!
How to make Christmas Crack
I highly recommend a candy thermometer so you know when the caramel hits the right stage in hardness.
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a 15” x 10” x 1” pan with parchment paper, foil, or a silicone mat. Line up crackers in a single layer in rows on prepared sheet.
- Meanwhile, using a candy thermometer, melt butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 to 3 minutes (270 to 290 degrees if using a candy thermometer).
- Immediately pour over crackers and spread evenly with a spatula. Bake 5 minutes or until the candy hardens. Remove from oven.
- Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave in 30-second increments at 50% power until melted. Spread over hardened caramel. (You can also sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hardened candy, pop it back in the oven until melted, and spread after that).
- Sprinkle nuts or other toppings and press into the chocolate using a greased spatula. Cut into squares while warm. Cool completely for at least 15 minutes and store in the refrigerator.
Do you need an instant-read thermometer?
Because you want to make sure the caramel is at the exact hardness, the best way ensure it doesn’t overheat with a good instant-read thermometer. I love my Thermapen One from ThermoWorks and it’s one of my most used cooking tools. I get nearly instant, extremely accurate results every time. In fact, we named it the top pick in our roundup of the best instant-read thermometers. You can also use it for cooking meat precisely!
It’s a bit pricey and you can get it for $99 at ThermoWorks. It does go on sale every so often, but if you want a more budget-friendly option, I also like the ThermoPop, which is only $15.99 at ThermoWorks and it makes a great gift!
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes about 12 servings of Christmas Crack.
- Storage: Depending on the season and the humidity, Christmas Crack should keep well in an airtight tin or container for about a week or longer at freezing temps (like on your patio or in your garage, Midwestern friends!).
- Freezer: Christmas Crack freezes well! Break or cut it into pieces and store it in freezer-safe bags for up to 3 months.
Cracker Candy FAQs
The caramel topping needs to get to the hard-crack stage or it will be chewy. This means you may have to bake it a little longer or adjust your oven temperature slightly (every oven is different). I insist on a candy thermometer.
Club crackers, graham crackers, or buttery Ritz crackers are all delicious bases for this candy.
Make sure the hardened caramel topping is still warm when you add the chocolate to prevent separation.
It might still be too hot. Let the candy cool until it’s easy to handle, then remove it from the foil or parchment.
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Christmas Crack Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 35-40 saltine crackers
- 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 1/2 cups chopped chocolate or chocolate chips (see note 1)
- 1 ½ cups toppings such as chopped pecans, crushed pretzels, M&Ms, or crushed OREOs (see note 2)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a 15” x 10” x 1” pan with parchment paper, foil, or a silicone mat. Line up crackers in a single layer in rows on prepared sheet.
- Meanwhile, using a candy thermometer, melt butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 to 3 minutes (270 to 290 degrees if using a candy thermometer). Immediately pour over crackers and spread evenly with a spatula.
- Bake 5 minutes or until the candy hardens. Remove from oven.
- Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave in 30-second increments at 50% power until melted. Spread over hardened caramel. (You can also sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hardened candy, pop it back in the oven until melted, and spread after that).
- Sprinkle nuts or other toppings and press into the chocolate using a greased spatula. Cut into squares while warm. Cool completely for at least 15 minutes and store in the refrigerator.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Chocolate: Sometimes chopped bar chocolate works better than chocolate chips. To melt the chocolate, you can either 1). melt it in the microwave and pour it over the top, or 2). sprinkle the chips on the hardened caramel topping, let them sit for a minute to melt, and then spread the softened chocolate chips with a spatula.
- Toppings: Try chopped pecans, pretzels, OREOs, M&Ms, toffee bits, peanut butter cups, toasted coconut, coarse sea salt, candy canes, or drizzles of white chocolate. Or, just leave it plain!
- Yield: This recipe makes about 12 servings of Christmas Crack.
- Storage: Depending on the season and the humidity, Christmas Crack should keep well in an airtight tin or container for about a week or longer at freezing temps (like on your patio or in your garage, Midwestern friends!).
- Freezer: Christmas Crack freezes well! Break or cut it into pieces and store it in freezer-safe bags for up to 3 months.
I just tried this recipe and my toffee got way too dark before it even got to temp (using a candy thermometer) and I could tell it was on the verge of burning. I had been stirring diligently and heat was med low. I’d definitely try again but any thoughts of what I did wrong?
Hi Lori, I’m guessing you have a really powerful stove that does a good job heating things. It sounds like the temperature progressed too quickly, so the only thing I can think of would be to cook it at a lower temperature for longer. That is really the only thing I can think of. I’m so sorry to hear that!
Love this,stuff, but I make it a little different. Not a chocolate fan so I omit it and also use club crackers
Great idea!! I use club crackers in my Homemade Twix bars. They are so versatile. Thanks for sharing!
seen it done with graham crackers also
Can you use margarine instead of butter??
Hi Liz! I have no idea. Does it melt the same as butter? Have you successfully made other candies with margarine? If so then I think it would probably work, I just don’t have any experience with margarine to know. Thanks for your question!
Margarine does not work the same as butter in this recipe, And you don’t have to melt the chocolate separately… when you pull the crackers with the brown sugar and butter out of the oven you can sprinkle the chocolate chips on top and wait just a couple of minutes then spread them out with a spatula. much easier.
Hi Brenda, that is how I have always made this myself and that’s how the recipe was up until recently. BUT, so many people have had issues with their chocolate seizing, I changed the recipe to melt the chocolate chips separately. More work, yes, but hopefully fewer failures. :-/
Can you use crocks instead of butter?
I have no idea! I have never used that, does it melt the same as butter? It’s definitely worth a try but I just don’t know.
hi, i made this today, everything was fine, till i put the chocolate chips on, i put them on and returned to the oven for 2 minutes, and went to spread them, and they wouldn’t spread, they were cores, grainy. took them out of the oven and turned it off and returned them to the oven for another 3 minutes, still wouldn’t spread, so i turned the oven back on and put them in for 6 addition minutes, no spread, just grainy, and broken , i wonder if the chips i used were bad, or what, but i wonder if i melt the chips on the stove next time would that help.
Hi Elaine, did you have the oven on at 300 degrees for baking the candy and then shut it off? Once the chocolate is coarse and grainy, you usually cannot ever spread it. It is usually the result of an oven that’s too hot, but if you had it at 300 degrees at first (and then turned off completely) you shouldn’t have had issues. However, some others have reported this (even though it hasn’t happened to me) so I may just change the recipe to melt the chips some other way. I am so sorry about that. It should still taste fine but yeah, once the chocolate “seizes” there is no spreading it. So sorry about that!
My granddaughter makes this, and its to DIE for. I will try it this year. Note: years ago, back in the 1960’s, my dear friend Doreen made this and called it ”ALMOST ROCA”
Use parchment pape, not aluminum foil:)
Amazing receipe. I left out peanuts and walnuts and used the crushed toffee bits. They were great. Also added about 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt to chocolate chips for the sweet salty taste.
Hi Jody, thanks so much for these ideas!! I love the sea salt to bring out the saltiness in the crackers and obviously toffee bits is the best idea, ever. 🙂 Glad the recipe worked for you!
I made this last year and used m&m’s. This time I made it with pecans and added a red and green icing drizzle to it to add Christmas color. I’m going ro make another batch at Christmas and top it with pretzels and crushed candy canes!
These variations all sound SO GOOD! So many things you can do to make this recipe even better. 🙂 The red & green drizzle is so obvious but I never thought of it!
I made it with the red and green chocolate chips. It made it look quite festive and still tasted fantastic!
Just made two batches of this. One was made on top of graham crackers had peanut butter and chocolate chip combination because that’s what I had on hand and then pretzels sprinkled over-the-top. The other had saltine crackers and for some reason all the saltines floated to the top above the caramel after I took it out of the oven I hope that’s not gonna be a disaster! Those have heath bar pieces sprinkled on top. Hope that’s not too much ‘toffee’? Is there such a thing?? Anyway what could be bad it’s all going to taste good! I think from now on I’ll only use graham crackers, it seems to make the whole experience a little bit more manageable .