Monday, July 5, 2010

Easy snack/dessert recipe

We have treat day at school once a month and our lovely PTO provides lunch once a month & meals during both Fall & Spring conference week. Several times a year, someone brings in a yummy matzo chocolate treat. I've always known it was easy to make, but never tried it. Until this week ...

Matzo Toffee:
* 2 cups coarsely crumbled matzos {I used more like 3.5 cups, I'll explain further down}
* 1 1/2 cups sliced almonds {the bag I bought was 1 2/3 cups, so I just used all of that}
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
* 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Step 1:
Preheat oven to 325. Line a large rimmed backing sheet with parchment {I had to use Pam'd foil, because I'm not the kind of girl that has parchment in my kitchen}. In a bowl, toss matzo pieces with almonds.
{I knew I wanted to take this snack to my condo's 4th of July BBQ, so I wanted to make extra. I didn't have enough ingredients to double my recipe, so I just increased the recipe by 50%. So in this bowl, you see about 3 cups of matzo and all the almonds I had.}

Step 2:
In a saucepan, bring butter, brown sugar, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water to a boil over medium, stirring constantly. {While this started boiling almost immediately, it didn't get to the toffee consistency for a few minutes.}

Step 3:
Working quickly, drizzle matzo mixture with syrup and toss. {I did increase all these ingredients, but didn't realize until this step that I didn't really need to increase the syrup mixture. It was WAY TOO MUCH syrup, even when I added more matzo at the last minute.}

Step 4:
Using a heatproof spatula, spread mixture onto a prepared sheet. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes. {This is where I really noticed I had too much syrup. I should have put the mixture on 2 cookie sheets, but didn't have 2 with rims. It had a hard time setting up.}

Step 5:
Remove from oven; sprinkle with chocolate chips. Let chocolate melt five minutes. {You do NOT need to increase the amount of chocolate chips. The original amount would have been plenty.}

Step 6:
Spread chocolate over matzo toffee after the 5 minutes have passed. {I ended up scraping a lot of the chocolate off & storing in a small bowl for some other something. It would be nice to have some of the toffee showing through.}

Step 7:
Refrigerate until chocolate has set. Break into pieces and serve. To store, refrigerate in an airtight container, up to 5 days.)

Great (and fairly easy) snack. I would either stick to the original recipe, minimize the amount of syrup anyway, or use my tips for increasing the amount. Would make a great house-warming or holiday party gift.

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