Chocolate caramel pretzel bark...aka chocolate crack.

At Christmas time, my dad wanted 

some homemade peanut brittle. 

 So my mom tried twice to make some, but she ended up with 

a sticky runny peanut mess.

I love a challenge, 

so I proceeded to get on a brittle kick and made 11 batches

 in a couple of days. 

 And also proceeded to eat WAY too much of it. 

 In case you didn't know...

it is highly ADDICTIVE. 

I tried all kinds of varieties

almonds, pecans, peanuts, cashews

and a combination of all.

The best seemed to be when I melted 

chocolate chips on top.  

The chocolate just took it to another level!

The brittle is pretty easy to make, but time consuming, so I found an easier recipe on Pinterest called 

chocolate caramel pretzel bark.  

Sounded super yummy to me, so I decided to give it a shot.

As a warning, I found out that it might be even more addicting than regular brittle. 

 I saw one recipe that called it...

Chocolate CRACK because it is sooo addicting.  :/

Anywho...if you dare, 

here is my culmination of several recipes.  :)

Salted Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bark

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter

1 cup light brown sugar

bag of mini pretzels (add peanuts or pecans too!)

12-oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

sea salt

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Wrap a baking sheet with tin foil and spray very lightly with cooking spray.  Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. 

As it melts, cover the baking sheet in an even layer of mini pretzels.

Once the butter is melted, add the sugar and stir to incorporate.

Allow the sugar and butter to softly simmer and bubble, but don’t let it boil. The browning process should take about 3-5 minutes from when it starts to bubble.  One recipe said not to stir, the other said occasionally, I stirred it once or twice, just to make sure it wasn't burning.

Once the sugar and butter have caramelized, pour the mixture evenly over the pretzels on the baking sheet. The caramel hardens pretty quickly so it’s important to pour it as evenly as possible from the start. If you end up with any clumps, just use a spatula to spread the caramel as best you can.  Bake the pretzel-caramel mixture in the oven for 5 minutes.  Remove the bark from the oven and top with the chips.  Put the pan back in the oven for a minute, then remove and spread chocolate with a spatula.  Sprinkle with sea salt and refrigerate until chocolate hardens.   Break into pieces.  

This is what it looked like before I broke it into pieces....  

Happy Brittling!   :)

And Happy New Year!  Today is New Year's Eve!