As a kid, I had never heard of Christmas Crackers. In fact, I’d never tasted anything like this recipe before. I’ve never melted butter and brown sugar before in a sauce pan and tasted the liquid gold that’s produced from combining this sugar and fat together. It’s dangerous. Dangerously good.
My girlfriend Chandice at This Vivacious Life just posted about Christmas Crackers and I finally dug into the recipe and realized I could totally make this with the ingredients that I already had in my kitchen – all dairy free! I always have Schar Table Crackers on hand, along with dairy-free butter alternative and dairy-free chocolate chips! Schar is an amazing sponsor of Celiac and the Beast, and I just love their products!
PS if you’re looking for an alternative to this recipe, my other girlfriend Cindy at Vegetarian Mamma put a spin on this recipe by adding peppermint! She also had Schar Table Crackers on hand for her recipe – what a great cracker!
What You Need:
Schar Table Crackers
1 C (two sticks) Dairy-Free Butter Alternative – like Earth Balance
1 C Packed Brown Sugar
2 C Dairy-Free Chocolate Chips (Either Pascha Chocolate or Enjoy Life Foods)
1 T Coconut Oil
How To Do It:
- Set oven 325°F, make sure there is no Elf on the Shelf inside before setting the oven.
- Find a rimmed baking pan or shallow baking dish, line with parchment paper or foil
- At the bottom of the pan or dish, place Schar Table Crackers in a row. If they overlap it’s fine, I’ve actually done this with a few layer of crackers and it really doesn’t matter. Keep in mind that the thinner the “crack” the easier it is to break!
- In a sauce pan, carefully (seriously) melt the dairy-free butter alternative and the brown sugar over low medium-low heat, and whisk until combined. Make sure to keep whisking so the bottom doesn’t burn. After you start seeing bubbles, whisk for about a minute more!
- Pour the dairy-free butter and sugar mixture over the crackers and bake for about 5-10 minutes – on the low side for a thinner “crack” on a rimmed cookie sheet and on the high side for a thicker “crack” in a baking dish.
- Carefully put the dish into the fridge for 10 minutes.
- Hopefully you’ve cleaned that saucepan, because we’ll need it again to melt the chocolate! On medium-low, melt the chocolate together with the coconut oil. Be extra careful not to burn the chocolate – melt it just to the point of smoothness.
- Take the baking pan/baking dish out of the fridge, and pour the chocolate over the sugar mixture.
- Freeze until chocolate hardens, and then you can “crack” the pieces off into a bark.
Holy cow, that butter + crackers + sugar magic at the bottom of the “crack” is incredible. I mean, I guess if you soak anything in enough sugar and fat it’s bound to be delicious, but man – I finally understand the massive appeal of making this around the holidays. I hope you’ve found your favorite way to make this bark and enjoy it during the holiday!
*Schar is a sponsor of Celiac and the Beast. I am a paid blogger with Schar and often receive complimentary product as well.*
Can you substitute coconut palm sugar for the brown sugar in this recipe??
Brown sugar can’t be subbed, but you can sub out the regular sugar for coconut palm sugar.
Why can the brown sugar not be subbed for coconut or date sugar. I’ve had a lot of success subbing either of those for brown sugar in the past for making caramels, which is basically a longer cooked version of this sugar and butter mixture.
On a side note, I grew up with this. We always called it cracker candy.