{"id":2026,"date":"2010-12-27T19:39:05","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T11:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/?p=2026"},"modified":"2011-01-03T15:05:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T07:05:01","slug":"salty-caramel-and-chocolate-christmas-crackers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/salty-caramel-and-chocolate-christmas-crackers\/","title":{"rendered":"Salty caramel and chocolate christmas crackers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Christmas is widely considered to be\u00a0a time for giving.\u00a0 Being a “foodie” I am overjoyed by any opportunity to cook for others.\u00a0 Christmas gives me a wonderful excuse\u00a0to create homemade gifts for friends and loved ones.\u00a0 My staples for the past few years have been White chocolate and pistachio nut fudge and Christmas nougat.\u00a0 There are times that I have\u00a0considered making other things but invariably I have people requested the\u00a0old faithfuls.\u00a0\u00a0I have always oblidged without question…..until now.<\/p>\n

Searching for something to\u00a0make at this time of year brings its own set of criteria.\u00a0 For me it must be something that has a maximum pay off for minimum effort.\u00a0 Let’s face it, we all get so busy during the holidays\u00a0and making gifts for others it\u00a0is still another thing to add to the list of things to do.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No matter how much one enjoys giving a handmade gift, buying something generic certainly is much less time consuming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So you can imagine my excitement when I found something I could create in less than 30 minutes that I knew others would enjoy.\u00a0 Making these is a simple process, no sugar thermometer is required for the caramel, nor a bain-marie for melting chocolate.\u00a0\u00a0The recipe almost sounded too good to be true, but it wasn’t.<\/p>\n

I think I might even have to adapt this recipe for Valentine’s Day.<\/p>\n

Enjoy!<\/p>\n

Salty caramel and chocolate christmas crackers\u00a0(recipe from <\/span>Dish Magazine – December 2010\/January 2011<\/span><\/em><\/a>)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ingredients
\n<\/span>100g (3.5 ozs\/\u00bclb) plain salted crackers such as Salada
\n225g (1 cup\/2 sticks) butter
\n\u00be cup (150g\/5.3ozs) soft brown sugar
\n200g (7 ozs\/\u00bdlb) plain dark chocolate, roughly chopped
\n\u00bd cup (60g\/2 ozs) pistachios, chopped
\n\u00bd cup (60g\/2 ozs) dried cranberries, chopped\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Preparation
\n<\/span>Preheat the oven to 190\u00b0C (375\u00b0F\/Gas 5).\u00a0 Line a 22cm x 33cm (8 \u00bd in x 13 in) shallow baking tray with baking paper.\u00a0 \u00a0Place the crackers in the base of the tray without overlapping, so they\u00a0cover the base, breaking them to fit if required.<\/p>\n

Melt the butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring well, until it bubbles and is combined.\u00a0 Remove from the heat and pour immediately over the crackers as evenly as possible.\u00a0 Place in the preheated oven for 8 – 10 minutes or until bubbling all over and the caramel is starting to darken.<\/p>\n

Remove from the\u00a0heat and sprinkle the chocolate\u00a0over evenly, then return to the oven for a further minute or until the chocolate has just melted enough to spread.\u00a0 Using a spatula or palette knife spread the chocolate evenly so is smooth on the surface.<\/p>\n

Sprinkle over the pistachios and cranberries and leave until the chocolate is just set\u00a0before cutting into pieces.\u00a0 Store the crackers in an airtight container for up to a week.<\/p>\n

My tips\/alterations:<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0*I used half dark (70% cocoa) and half milk chocolate for the topping, just because I had some milk chocolate I wanted to use up.\u00a0 It worked well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

ease: 9\/10.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Very easy\u00a0
\nprep time:<\/strong>\u00a020mins.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\ncooking time: 10mins. <\/strong>
\ntotal: 30 mins.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

taste: 9\/10.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0The balance of salt and sweetness was excellent and the cranberries added a little bit of sharpness which balanced well with the rich flavour of chocolate.\u00a0 They were crunchy and chewy at the same time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

would I make it again:\u00a0\u00a0Absolutely<\/strong>\u00a0and it won’t just be for Christmas!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Christmas is widely considered to be a time for giving. Being a “foodie” I am overjoyed by any opportunity to cook for others. Christmas gives me a wonderful excuse to create homemade gifts for friends and loved ones. My staples for the past few years have been White chocolate and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[89,91,61,35,25,29],"tags":[17,13,131,107,98,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2026"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2053,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026\/revisions\/2053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}