Halloween Cracker Candy

The ultimate Halloween and fall season treat made with your favorite candy! This is an easy cracker candy recipe that has a saltine toffee base. Made with reese’s pieces and chocolate morsels, you’ll enjoy all your fall favorite tastes in every bite! 

 

I’m ready to satisfy my sweet tooth with some candy crack! Here we go!

Bring. It. On.

Cracker candy is the ultimate sweet treat for any occasion but I especially love making it during Halloween and Christmas. It’s especially fun to make this close to Halloween because you can use leftover halloween candy.

So let me ask you, what was your absolute FAVORITE candy growing up? Come on…we all had one! Mine was a Caramello candy bar. All that chocolate and creamy caramel…I haven’t had one in years! I also loved reese’s pieces. When’s the last time you had reese’s pieces? Not reeses cups (although those are also uber delish), I’m talking about reese’s pieces. I bet it’s been awhile.

Well, you know what that means. It’s time to go grab a bag of reeses candy and make yourself the absolute BEST Halloween cracker candy.

You might be saying…”Hold on, Amanda….the BEST? That’s a strong statement. The BEST is hard to define. It’s quite subjective” Well, you’re not wrong…but I’m claiming this candy bark as the best because I took this platter of yumminess to my office and BAM – it was gone so fast!

I had so many people pass me in the hall or send me a message and said, “Holy cow – that was the best saltine cracker candy!” I tasted all kinds of fall flavors in there!”

So that’s why this one is getting labeled the BEST!

Why This Recipe Works

If the co-worker comments above don’t convince you as to why you should make this cracker candy, here’s some more reasons why yours truly is so in love with this chocolate bark:

• This candy bark is really quick and easy to make with little cleanup involved,
• It’s versatile – you can use whatever type of candy you want,
• The crackers are covered in a homemade caramel and when it dries, it tastes like toffee!

Ingredients You’ll Need

Here’s what I use in this cracker candy recipe. I like using mini semisweet chocolate chip morsels because they melt quickly. If you’ve ever wondered how to make toffee, it involves melting dark brown sugar and butter. I use dark brown sugar because it is made with molasses, which brings forth more of a toffee flavor than caramel flavor. With this recipe, I use both salted butter and margarine. You don’t need to add any additional salt to the recipe because the saltines provide enough to tone down some of the sweetness. So does the salt in the butter and margarine.

While I love using reeses pieces and pumpkin spice morsels, you can use different types of candy. And leftover Halloween candy is fun to use when making cracker candy. I’ve used a crumbled up snickers bar and M&M chocolate before and it was so tasty! I’ve also used twix chocolate bars and nestle crunch bars. Milky way chocolate and kit kat chocolate are also really good.

The candy combinations are endless!

Step-by-Step Recipe Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

With this bark recipe, we start by lining a quarter (9×13) cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Expert Tip: The shiny side of the aluminum foil should be facing up to help maintain the heat while baking. 

Grab your favorite brand of saltine crackers and lay them in order one-by-one so they are touching.

The cookie sheet should look like this when you’re done placing the crackers. You want a nice tight cookie sheet with crackers placed right beside each other. You want them touching, but not overlapping.

Next, it’s time to make the homemade caramel sauce. Take the salted butter, margarine, and brown sugar and place them into a large saucepan. Set the stovetop burner to medium-high.

When the brown sugar, butter, and margarine start to melt, they are going to start bubbling. Get the spoon ready because we are about to start stirring!

You want your ooey gooey caramel sauce to stay at a rolling boil until it starts to get thick. Then, let the sauce boil for about 3 minutes, stirring to ensure it’s not sticking or burning.

After the caramel is at the consistency above, you’re going to pour it onto the tray of saltine crackers.

Then, take your spatula and spread the caramel sauce as evenly as possible onto the crackers. Expert Tip: Make sure you spread the sauce quickly because it will start to thicken and solidify.

Now that you have the caramel sauce spread evenly, put the cookie sheet of crackers and caramel sauce into the preheated oven. Your goal here is to let the caramel get hot and bubbly just like it is here below. This usually takes about 5 minutes so keep your eye on this process so it doesn’t burn!

Once the caramel is hot and bubbly, pull the cookie sheet out of the oven and evenly spread the mini chocolate morsels, reese’s pieces, pumpkin spice morsels, pecans chips, and sprinkles. Spread them out as evenly as you can with a spatula. Expert Tip: This means mixing and swirling all those candies into the ooey gooey caramel. The goal here is to combine all these yummy candy flavors while they start to melt.

Place the cookie sheet back into the oven for another 3-5 minutes or until the chocolate morsels start to melt. It’s important to note that the reese’s pieces and pumpkin spice morsels won’t completely melt. And that’s ok! Once the chocolate has started to melt, remove the cookie sheet from the oven.

We now need the bark to get cold so it becomes hard. Place a potholder or kitchen towel in the refrigerator and then place the cookie sheet into the refrigerator for about 1-2 hours so the cracker candy can become hard.

Once the candy is hard, it’s ready to break! You’re going to take your hands and start pulling up the bark and breaking it into pieces.

Divine, right?!?

And that’s it…LITERALLY DONE!

Expert Tips and FAQs

• If you want to make a gluten free cracker candy, you can use a gluten free saltine cracker like Schar Naturally Gluten-Free Table Crackers.
• I use both butter and margarine in this recipe. Butter provides a rich flavor while the margarine helps the caramel sauce spread out while baking.
• If you want a pumpkin spice flavor, use these Nestle Pumpkin Spice Toll House Morsels. And these M&M’s Candy Corn White Chocolate Candies are also pretty fabulous!
• If you want to cut some of the sweetness, you can use a dark chocolate morsel like these Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels. Adding in pretzel sticks can also help cut the sweetness, as well.
• To avoid the cracker candy sticking to the aluminum foil, use a cooking spray or evenly spread butter onto the aluminum foil before placing the crackers.
• When you’re breaking the bark, make sure you tear off any stubborn aluminum foil that may stick. It likes to stick to the bottom of the caramel and crackers.
• If you have a flexipan, use it when making this bark. It will make your life SO much easier! You can also use parchment paper.
• My sister introduced this bark to me several years ago and she called it “Krack Kandy” because it’s seriously very hard to put down. It’s kind of addictive. So if you’ve heard of “Krack Kandy” or “Crack Candy” – this is the recipe.

There you have it… oh my goodness aren’t you so excited to make this for yourself?!? Then go…but make sure to come back and tell me know you liked it and all the fun variations you tried!!

Other Sweet Treats You’ll Enjoy

If you’re looking for some additional fall favorite sweet treats here at Recipes Worth Repeating, check out these Gluten Free Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies. They have a reeses pieces flavor to them.

My Apple Pumpkin Spice Cake with Butter Rum Glaze screams fall flavor with the tastes of apple and pumpkin spice. And since we’re on a pumpkin spice kick, these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins are great for breakfast, a snack, or even dessert!

I can’t wait to hear how this turned out for you and what candy you used! If you’ve tried this or any other recipe of mine on the website, make sure you rate the recipe and let me know how it turned out in the comments below! I love hearing from you!

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Update Notes: This post was originally published in August 2018, but was re-published with updated step-by-step instructions, pictures and tips in October 2020.