Mayan Doomsday Dark Chocolate Saltine Toffees + Green and Black’s Organic Chocolate Giveaway!

Sometimes you just need some intense chocolate when you feel like your world is ending, you know? Whether or not you believe in the Mayan Doomsday prophecy, you will love these Mayan Doomsday Dark Chocolate Saltine Toffees!

I’ve taken the traditional saltine toffee and put a darker spin on it — instead of regular saltines, semisweet chocolate, light brown sugar, I used whole wheat saltines, dark chocolate, dark brown sugar, and added some Mayan-inspired heat in the way of cinnamon and cayenne powder.

The inspiration for these came while I was out running errands the other day.  That’s pretty much how it happens for me — when I’m out running errands or at work.  Anyway, a while back the folks at Green and Black’s Organic Chocolate very generously offered to send me a selection of some of their “spicy” flavors for me to play around with.  Oh I had so many ideas floating around for how to use their chocolates.  A few flopped, a couple I think have potential, but this particular recipe just popped into my head – I’d been wanting to use the Mayan Gold chocolate in a recipe and with all the doomsday talk, I figured it’d be a good idea to pay homage just in case!

If you’re like me and scared of anything that smacks of candy-making (read anything to do with boiling sugar, candy thermometers, caramels, etc.), I can personally assure you that you don’t have anything to fear.  I promise.

Despite what you’re thinking, this is a forgiving recipe.  For instance, I’m pretty sure my brown sugar/butter mixture was a little TOO brown, but it worked out just fine.

And my fear that the chocolate pieces wouldn’t melt and spread evenly?  Totally unfounded.  And by all means, please feel free to use even more chocolate than called for!  Now is not the time to be stingy!

If you’re not sure how you feel about your chocolate having some bite to it, then feel free to tone down the cayenne. But please at least do the cinnamon and sea salt sprinkles, they really just oomph up these saltine toffees.

Once everything has cooled and hardened, I use a pizza cutter to cut the toffee into squares. I’m horrible with straight lines, so this seems to leave less room for error.

If you make these, I guarantee you will have people hounding you for the recipe!

As if the food porn pics weren’t enough for you, I have another treat in store!  The folks at Green and Black’s Organic have generously offered to give a lucky Spice’s Bites reader 5 of their popular chocolate bars so that you too can play around with the different flavors.  Trust me, you don’t want to turn away an opportunity for amazing free chocolate!

Here’s what you have to do – each is worth one entry:

Leave a comment here telling me what 5 flavors of Green and Black’s Organic chocolate that you would like to try.

Follow Spice’s Bites and Green and Black’s USA on Twitter: @spicesbites and @greenblacksUS and then leave me a comment here telling me you did so

Tweet about the giveaway and mention @spicesbites and @greenblacksUS and leave a comment here telling me you did so

Share the giveaway post on Facebook and leave a comment here telling me you did so.

Giveaway is limited to U.S. residents age 18 and over.  Due to the Christmas holiday, this giveaway will run through 9pm Eastern time on December 26th.  Once I’ve selected a winner, I will email you to get your contact info, so make sure you enter an email address when leaving a comment (it won’t show up in the comment).

*Disclosure:  Green and Black’s Organic sent me samples of their chocolate to try.  I did not receive any compensation and am not obligated to post a positive review.  Any opinions are my own.  Green and Black’s Organic is providing the chocolate for the winner of the giveaway.

UPDATE — We have a winner!

Congratulations, Amy!

Mayan Dark Chocolate Saltine Toffees

Ingredients

40 whole-wheat saltines (a little over a sleeve)

1 cup/stick unsalted butter

1 packed cup dark brown sugar

2 cups dark chocolate chips or chunks (I used a mix of Green and Black Organic’s Mayan Gold chocolate and Dark 70% chocolate)

ground cinnamon

ground cayenne powder

sea salt for sprinkling

 

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line a rimmed cookie sheet/jelly roll pan/baking sheet with parchment paper and cover with saltine crackers in a single layer.

Combine the dark brown sugar and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Boil for 3 minutes, then immediately pour over the crackers. Use a rubber spatula to try to spread across all the crackers as best as you can.

Place pan in oven and bake for 5 minutes.

Remove pan and immediately sprinkle with chocolate chunks.  The chocolate will begin to melt from the heat, so start spreading over the crackers evenly.  Sprinkle some cinnamon and cayenne over the hot melted chocolate — they will get absorbed into the chocolate.

Cool completely, until chocolate hardens.  Sprinkle again with cinnamon and cayenne, this time adding sea salt.  Slice into squares using knife or pizza cutter.