Club Cracker ‘Who-Done-It’ Toffee

I love digging into a good book, or at least a “good book” by my standards (more on that later), but sleep tends to get in the way. I come by it honestly; when I lived with my parents I remember walking by their room at night and seeing my dad with his mouth open, his lamp still on, and snoring loudly with an open book sprawled on his face. Obviously I fall asleep in a much more refined, ladylike fashion than that description (totally), but the point remains the same: it takes me a while to finish books.

For my mom, the line never seems to blur between reading and sleeping, possibly because of the books she chooses. While I go for what we will kindly call “popular fiction,” aka Harry Potter, Twilight, and more recently, Fifty Shades of Grey, my mom loves the who-done-it, murder and mayhem types that I can’t read because I scare easy. A few summers ago, we were sitting outside when I looked over and saw my mom reading, Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. Between hearty laughs, I asked my mom what in the world she was holding. A recipe book? A murder mystery? A joke?

After my mom made a recipe from the mystery book, my sarcasm and mockery fell down to my foot, which I promptly stuck in my mouth. The book may not be my cup of tea as far as genres go, but man oh man, the author makes a mean toffee.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Club Cracker Toffee

Adapted from Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke.

• 16-ounce box of club crackers
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 cup chopped peanuts

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease a 10×15 cookie sheet, then line with parchment and press down. Cover it completely with the club crackers (you won’t use the whole box).

In a saucepan, bring the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla to a boil, stirring constantly. Let it boil for 5 minutes, stirring all the while. Switch arms halfway to ensure a balanced arm workout.

After the 5 minutes are up, pour the brown sugar/buttery caramel goodness over the crackers as evenly as possible, using a spatula to gently spread it over the entire pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

While the toffee base bakes, boil water in a medium-sized saucepan, and set a glass bowl on top. Pour the chocolate chips in the bowl, stirring frequently, and once they’re nearly melted, mix in the peanut butter. Smooth the mixture over the baked toffee, and sprinkle with peanuts.

Allow to cool COMPLETELY.

Step away…just set it aside.

Is it cool yet? You should probably lick some of that chocolate peanut butter sauce while you wait.

When the pan is finally cool, lift the parchment to free the toffee from the pan. Break it into pieces, and eat up.

Light, crispy, peanut buttery…and so. freaking. easy.

The buttery club crackers are the perfect base, because they stay flaky and crumbly without being weighed down by the caramel sauce. The chocolate topping has that special, hard-to-find ratio you look for in a peanut butter/chocolate relationship.

It seems fitting that a recipe book disguised as a murder mystery would be the catalyst for me to cross the line into the scary-book genre. Yes, I stepped into the danger zone and read the book. I experienced the murder, the mayhem, and I even figured out ‘who-done-it’…but it doesn’t really matter, cause I still fell asleep.