Leprechaun Crack
Have you heard of the famous Christmas Crack or Saltine Toffee? Well this is a fun St. Patrick’s Day inspired twist on that simple recipe, giving you a tasty, festive treat for the holiday. It is like these Graham Cracker Toffee Magic Bars but with Saltine crackers and with a green twist. You are going to love this easy, fun treat.
Serve with Irish Soda Bread and Corned Beef for a great St. Patrick’s Day meal.
I love this recipe, it is not inherently Irish, is totally just for fun, a festive, green, silly dessert that looks and tastes great, and is such a fun way to celebrate the St. Patrick’s Day holiday. Much like this Rainbow Bundt Cake it is simply whimsical and fun. But also totally delicious.
Here is why I love it:
- Takes about 10 minutes to make: You need to let it set up for about 2 hours, but the hands on time is very minimal.
- Only 5 ingredients: It is so simple, only a few ingredients, and all stuff you likely have on hand or is easy to find at a grocery store.
- Customizable: Kids can help decorate it as they wish, you can use sprinkles, or Lucky Charms Marshmellows.
What You Need to Make Leprechaun Crack Toffee
Making this saltine cracker toffee fun for St. Patrick’s Day, or Leprechaun Crack as we jokingly call it is super easy, and only takes a handful of easy to find ingredients. Here is what you need:
- Butter: Salted or unsalted is fine, I prefer unsalted because I find the salt from the crackers to be plenty for this recipe.
- Brown Sugar: Light or dark is fine, use whatever you have on hand.
- Saltine Crackers: You need about 40, or 1 sleeve.
- White Chocolate Chips or Candy Melts: You can also mix it up and use green candy melts, or stir in a bit of green food dye to the white chocolate chips to get that fun St. Patrick’s Day dessert twist.
- Toppings: This is where things get fun, you can use green sprinkles, gold, the Lucky Charms Marshmellows, or whatever sounds fun to you to make it cute and festive.
Recommended Equipment
- Baking Sheet Lined with Parchment or Foil
- Rubber Spatula for Spreading the Chocolate
- Small Saucepan for Making Toffee Mixture
How to Make Leprechaun Crack (Saltine Toffee)
Making this saltine toffee or Leprechaun Crack is really quite simple, requiring only a few minutes of hands on time and a couple simple steps.
Step One: Prep Everything
This recipe moves fast, so take a few minutes upfront to prep your ingredients, pans etc.
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Line a large baking sheet with heavy duty aluminum foil
- Spray foil with non-stick cooking spray for easy removal
- Place crackers across the baking sheet
- Get toppings out and ready to be used.
Step Two: Make Toffee Mixture
On the stove top over medium-high heat, in a small saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together. Bring to a rolling boil.
Reduce the heat to medium and let it continue to boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally but not the whole time.
When 5 minutes are up, quickly pour the mixture over the crackers that are on the baking sheet, and use a rubber spatula if need to spread it out evenly over everything.
Step Three: Bake
Bake for 5 minutes in the preheated oven.
Turn off heat.
Remove from oven.
Step Four: Chocolate and Toppings
Immediately sprinkle the white chocolate chips or candy melts on top, as evenly as you can.
Let the whole thing stand for 1-2 minutes, until the chocolate starts to melt a little. It will look shiny and should be soft enough to spread evenly over the saltine toffee.
Note: If the chocolate is not warm enough to spread after 4 minutes, place it back in the oven for a minute to help soften it. But not too long, keep a close eye.
While chocolate is still wet, top with additional toppings as desired.
Step Five: Chill
Chill everything in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to allow the toffee to harden and set up.
When set, carefully peel away the foil and break your leprechaun crack into pieces to serve.
Serve With
This recipe is so fun for St. Patrick’s Day parties, classroom treats, or a fun family snack or dessert. I love pairing it with:
Tips and Tricks
Making this recipe is Eazy Peazy. Here are a few tricks for helping it turn out great every time.
- Prep Everything: This recipe moves quick, so the best way to make sure it turns out perfect is to have everything prepped, ready to go, and set out before starting so you don’t have to pause part way through, overcook, or ruin anything.
- Don’t Walk Away: Again, this is a fast moving recipe, the butter sugar mix that makes the toffee needs some attention, and timing is key. You want it to be a rolling boil to evaporate some of the moisture, so it becomes like caramel. It only takes about 5 minutes of boiling time. Then 5 minutes of baking time. If you go over, it can burn. So use a timer. And stick around so you do not miss it.
- Top While Hot: To make it the cutest, best looking Leprechaun crack, you want to make sure to add your toppings like your marshmallows or sprinkles while it is hot, and the chocolate is still wet. That way the chocolate will set with the toppings in place and act as a glue to keep them in place.
- Cool Completely: This is so yummy, and crunchy, and satisfying…if…you let it set up. So give yourself the time to let it chill the full 2 hours.
- High Quality = High Quality: If you want it to be amazing start with amazing ingredients. High quality chocolate, full fat butters, etc. produce better results.
- Size Matters: The proper pan size should be a 10×15″ jelly roll pan, but any size of baking sheet this size or larger will work. The trick is to fold the foil so the crackers are in place and the toffee mixture doesn’t run out the sides. You want it all to end up on top of the crackers.
- Don’t Skip the Step: You want to line the pan. I have found heavy duty foil works best, and is the easiest to peel away from the crackers when ready to serve. But regular foil sprayed with cooking spray, or parchment sprayed with cooking spray also works.
- Look at It: While the time matters, also take a look at it when baking the saltine toffee. Every oven is a little different, but you want about 5 minutes, you want the mixture bubbling so the toffee part essentially reaches a second boiling point. This is what will allow it to set up firm and soak into the crackers to give you that irresistible crunch.
- Melting the Chocolate Chips: Work quick, as soon as you remove the tray from the oven, immediately sprinkle the white chocolate chips on top. It should be hot enough to melt them, and once about half are shiny you can start spreading the chocolate around to cover everything. However, if it isn’t melting fast enough, give it a little heat, or melt separately and spread/pour over.
Make Ahead and Storage
This recipe is so fun for the holiday, and can be made several days in advance.
How to make this recipe ahead of time:
Simply make according to the directions, chill, break into pieces, and store in an airtight container in the fridge or on the counter for up to a week.
Other Great Recipes:
- 10 St. Patrick’s Day Recipes
- St. Patrick’s Day Fudge, 3 ingredients, 1 Pot
- Colcannon
- Reuben with a Twist
- Corned Beef Hash
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Leprechaun Crack
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted or salted butter
- 1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
- 40 salted saltine crackers about 1 sleeve
- 11 ounces white chocolate chips or green candy melts 1 package
- additional toppings like candy Lucky Charm marshmallows, green sprinkles (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Then prepare your toffee base by lining a large baking sheet with heavy duty aluminum foil. *See NoteSpread the crackers out on the foil in a single layer and fold up the edges to box them in. Set aside.
- In a small saucepan, over medium-high heat, melt the butter and brown sugar together. Bring to a rolling boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium and set a time to continue to boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. When 5 minutes is up, quickly pour the mixture over the crackers and spread it using a rubber spatula to to cover completely and evenly.
- Bake for 5 minutes in the preheated oven. Then remove from oven and immediately spread the white chocolate chips across the top.
- Let stand for 1-2 minutes until the white chocolate chips start to look shiny, then use a spatula to spread the chocolate evenly across the saltine toffee. * See Note.
- Top with additional toppings as desired.
- Chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours to allow to set. Break into pieces, and be sure to peel the foil off the bottom of the toffee.
Notes
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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