The Spawn of Satan

I had a weekend of failures. After being completely inspired by some fabulous baking blogs, I printed off my favorite recipes to make: Mango Pudding, Hokey Pokey and Mocha Panna Cotta with Fleur de Sel Caramel. And I'm not going to blame these recipes, because I still have faith in these bloggers, but I just failed at everything. I wanted to make the Mango pudding to use up a very ripe mango I had sitting in the fridge, but the recipe called for two others and they mustn't have been ripe enough because the pudding tasted a bit sour and generally not very good.

Next I attempted to make some Hokey Pokey. Now Nigella Lawson had this on her show around Christmas and I immediately tried to replicate it then, but without proper instructions I failed 3 times. But this time I was confident! I had a recipe! and an ingredients list! But the cooled Hokey Pokey didn't have the right consistency at all! It was basically a pellet of chewy sugar. But I refuse to give up on this one since I'm gonna need some sort of replacement for my Crunchie bars once I move back across the Atlantic.

Finally I made the Mocha Panna Cotta with Fleur de Sel Caramel and this wasn't exactly a failure. I still have 2 pots in my fridge and I plan on enjoying later, but I think I slightly screwed up the caramel sauce. Altough it's the right color and consistency, it doesn't taste right- which leads me to believe that I might just have issues cooking sugar in general. And the panna cotta wasn't sweet enough to take away the bitterness of the coffee.

With all these disappointments I had to bake something I knew I couldn't screw up. Something wildly delicious. Something so good, it's downright wrong. And so I made what I previously called Chocolate Cracker Things but today my colleague called them the Spawn of Satan. So I know I've done something right.



The Spawn of Satan
formerly known as Jennifer Fearing's Chocolate Cracker Things

• About 40 Saltine crackers


• 1 Cup sugar


• 2 sticks of butter


• 1 Bag of bittersweet chocolate chips

As this recipe is thoroughly American the measurements are obviously a bit biased. So when I made this in London I used:

• 1.5 Sleeves of Tuc crackers


• 1 Cup (or 8oz) sugar


• 250gr Country Life butter


• 450gr Bittersweet chocolate, chopped
  

Preheat oven to HOT

Line a large cookie sheet with tin foil. Cover the pan in crackers.


In a medium saucepan, combine butter and sugar. Cook until the sugar is dissolved and bubbling.
Poor evenly over the crackers- spreading the mixture to the edges.

Pop the pan into the oven for 5-8 minutes, or until the butter starts to bubble and turn slightly brown and golden.


Evenly spread the chopped chocolate over the crackers and melted butter. Use a spoon to spread the now melted chocolate evenly over the crackers. Let cool and refrigerate for at least an hour.


When cold and hard, use the tin foil to pull the crackers out of the pan and break into large pieces.

I'm not sure how to capture the deliciousness of this snack- It's SO much more than crackers with butter, sugar and chocolate. It might just be the perfect combination.