Brickle

There are a lot of reasons why I love making brickle. First of all, it's delicious. Like, chocolate-covered sunshine delicious. Like, if I could only eat one food the rest of my life, it's in the running, despite what I'm sure would be utter warfare on my digestive tract. Second of all, it's easy. It takes about 10 minutes and four key ingredients to make it. It is un-screw-uppable. And third, it is completely open to creativity. No two brickles are ever the same, or if they are, you just aren't trying hard enough.

With a slew of leftover candy canes and me being too cheap sentimental to throw them away, I decided to try making candy cane brickle. It was heavenly. It's times like these that I secretly suspect I may be in a genius, and I think the evidence is in my favor (although that goes away as soon as I put a pair of jeans in the wash with gum in the pocket. My bad!). Here, see for yourself:

It's sweet, it's salty; it's chocolatey, it's minty. If there was some way to integrate coffee into it, I might explode.

Brickle
 40 saltine crackers
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup brown sugar
12-oz. bag chocolate chips
toppings - go wild!

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. (The type of cookie sheets with edges.) Line the sheet with a single layer of saltines face up and touching. Preheat oven to 400.

Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When the butter is melted, stir in brown sugar and heat mixture to a boil. Boil rapidly for 3 minutes or until the butter is no longer visible, stirring constantly. Pour immediately over the saltines, distributing evenly with the back of a spoon. Bake 5 minutes.

Sprinkle tray with chocolate chips. After two minutes, use the back of a spoon to level the melted chocolate across the sheet. Add toppings. Refrigerate two hours, then break into pieces.

The toppings are really where it's at. You can go buckwild. I've used sprinkles, M&Ms, almonds, walnuts, toffee bits, and now candy canes. I've even doused it with liquid white chocolate (I don't recommend it because it'd doesn't solidify in the fridge.) You can try using different types of chocolate chips (again, don't use white chocolate because it doesn't melt right). In all, the only limit is your imagination.

Thankfully, I still have candy canes leftover, enough to make this delicious treat again. Merry Christmas to me!