Christmas crack

This year, I delegated most of my Christmas traditions and responsibilities in advance, knowing that when Baby 2.0 was born in November, the holidays would be hectic. Thank goodness for family... My sister knocked off all the presents on my list, she helped me decorate the house, and we hired someone to put up the lights. And I told myself I wouldn't do any Christmas baking.

When my first son was born, I ambitiously decided to make Christmas tree cupcakes on Christmas Eve and this is what happened. But as the holidays rolled around this time, I was wistfully bookmarking recipes and scrolling through my older blog posts to see what I'd made in the past. And when my new baby wakes up for middle-of-the-night feedings, I find myself pinning holiday treats on the Pinterest app on my iPhone.

One of the recipes that caught my eye was Christmas crack. Just a few ingredients, rave reviews, only a few minutes on the stovetop and in the oven... looked good! But was it just one of those Pinterest recipes that would fall flat in execution?

Nope. It tasted even better than promised. Crispy, buttery, chocolatey. Yum. And yes, it even lived up to the name. It's addictive. I keep cracking open my Tupperware to sneak some in. Bonus, I was able to keep my toddler occupied by getting him to organize the crackers on the baking sheet.

Here's the recipe.

You probably have the ingredients in your pantry, so start getting them out now - I'll wait.

OK, are you back? Let's continue.

Substitutions: I used semi-sweet chocolate chips because I can find milk chocolate cloying sometimes. Some other Christmas crack recipes called for salted butter, but I only used the unsalted butter I had on hand. To introduce the salty element, after adding pecans, I sprinkled the cookie sheet with fleur de sel.
And after sampling the batch, I will likely never make it any other way again. It was sublime.

Would I make this again? Definitely. Maybe again this week if I can carve out 10 minutes for myself. Yes - 10 minutes! 10 whole minutes!

Grade: Five stars out of five. Were you reading closely? I used the word "sublime." When's the last time I used that? Never. Just trust me on the darker chocolate/fleur de sel combination. I think that's what really set this apart from some run-of-the-mill amateur Christmas confection.