After not too much work I tracked it down, and trust me. You want to make this.

This will blow your mind.

What’s fantastic about this stuff is many things. First, it marries salty and sweet perfectly which is my favorite. Second, it is super easy to make. Third, it is best kept and eaten frozen so it is awesome for summer time.

Brickle (Thanks Meredith!)
Feeds a party… or one.

- 40 Saltine crackers (one sleeve about)
- 1 Cup salted butter (don’t substitute)
- 1 Cup brown sugar
- 1 12 ounce package of chocolate chips
- 5-6 Heath bars, crunched up for topping

This is all you need! The Saltine crackers are the key to the saltiness and they are kind of hard to identify in the final product because it is all broken up.

Simple ingredients actually.

The next part is simple. Take your largest sheet or baking tray (make sure it is rimmed) and line it with foil. Then toss down your crackers. Make sure that they don’t overlap. That’s pretty much the only rule. The crackers should fill up the baking sheet perfectly. If you have a smaller baking sheet, then you will obviously need less crackers.

Crackers laid out.

Ok. Now the only actual hard part in the whole recipe and it isn’t that hard: making the caramel. Just melt your butter in a saucepan and then stir in your brown sugar. Once it starts bubbling, turn the heat to medium-low and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir continuously or it might burn.

Stay close to this stuff.

The caramel will be pretty runny and that is good. Once it has simmered for a few minutes, pour it straight on the crackers. Try to get it kind of even, but don’t worry about covering everything.

Doesn't have to be even.

Next, stick your baking sheet in the oven at 325 degrees for 5-10 minutes. The original recipe called for 5 minutes, but mine took 10. Basically, you want the caramel to spread out nicely over the crackers. It should bubble a bit.

When you take it out of the oven, pour your chocolate chips on the tray right away. The residual heat from the oven will be more than enough to melt the chocolate. Let it sit for 5 minutes to melt.

Don't worry it will all melt.

You can use those 5 minutes while the chocolate melts to crumble up your Heath bars. Again, don’t worry about making them even or anything. Part of the charm of this dish is the random sizes of everything.

After 5 minutes, use a spatula to spread out your chocolate and make the chips flat. Then sprinkle on your Heath pieces.

Perfection is not essential.

Then just stick this whole thing in your freezer! You have to make sure you give this stuff time to freeze solid. I let mine sit for about 4 hours in there and that was more than enough time.

Then take it out and if your brickle is rock hard, flip it over and peel of the foil which should come off in one full sheet!

Cool.

Then just bust the stuff up! Take out some aggression! One note though… make sure you take the foil off before you break it up. That is, unless your idea of a good time is peeling hundreds of tiny foil pieces off of candy.

Um. Yes please.

Store this stuff in the freezer. It will keep for a month I’m sure. Not that anyone has ever actually let it sit that long. Mine was gone in a few days without any problem at all.

This will go quick at parties.

An easy recipe and a delicious dessert. It’s a perfect dessert for a party.

Make the brickle. Eat the brickle. Share the brickle. Love the brickle.

It's like apple pie for breakfast.

It might look unassuming, but there is tons of flavor packed into that little slice. With French toast on the bottom, warm, soft apples in the center and topped with a delicious caramel glaze. There are also little dried cranberry and walnut gems throughout the whole deal. It’s not so hard to make though. Let’s get into it.

Baked Breakfast Apples with French Toast Crust (From Florence’s “Stirring the Pot“)
(Makes 8 servings. 90 minute prep time.)

French Toast
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup whole milk (I used 2%)
- 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 of a loaf of Challah bread. (I couldn’t find this so I used normal wheat bread. I’m sure the slightly sweet Challah bread would be MUCH better.)

Filling
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter (I used salted. So sue me.)
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 Tablespoons dried cranberries
- 2 Tablespoons chopped pecans
- 1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
- 6 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into eighths.

Preheat your oven to 350 and then combine all of your wet ingredients for the French toast in a large bowl. Add the cinnamon and salt and mix really well.

French Toast is easy stuff.

Next prep your apples. Peel them, cut out the core, and slice into eighths much like an apple pie. If you have an apple corer more power to ya.

6 apples is enough for a breakfast pie.

We aren’t going to use them just yet. To prevent the dreaded apple browning, I recommend adding a dash of lemon juice and tossing the apples in it. It will prevent browning and it doesn’t noticeably change the flavor in the end result.

Keep your apples fresh man.

Now it is time to bust out your cast iron skillet or similar oven safe pan. The cast iron skillet was made for this dish. I’m not really sure how you would make it without something you could transfer from stovetop to oven, but you might be more creative than me.

Assuming you do have a pan that can go from stovetop to oven, throw in your butter and sugar and let it start to simmer on medium. Watch this closely. You don’t want the caramel to burn. It will start to bubble and then stir it for a few minutes and let it thicken and brown a bit.

Making caramel.

Once all the sugar is well dissolved and it is browning, take it off the heat and sprinkle on your cranberries, walnuts, and cinnamon. I was very worried about this recipe at this point. My fear was that when I put this in the oven, the caramel would burn. Turns out I’m just a worrier. There was no problem at all.

I was worried about this recipe at this point.

Then take all your apples that are sliced and arrange them decoratively in the pan. The important part is to have a flat surface to lay your French toast crust. This configuration worked great.

This is almost too pretty for my liking.

Then take whatever bread you are using and dunk it in the French toast mixture. Let it soak up a good amount of juice on both sides.

Make sure your bread is soaked.

Again, decoratively layer those bad boys on top of your apples. You want to make sure there are not any holes. Other than that it doesn’t matter what configuration you use. This layer method worked great for me though. One in the direct middle and then overlapping pieces around the edge.

I started to feel good at this point.

This whole dish goes in the oven for 55 to 60 minutes at 350. You want your toast browned and crispy and your apples soft. If I make this again (I probably will), I would cook it for a bit less time. I went for 60 minutes and the apples were a bit too soggy. Still delicious but I would go for 50-55 minutes next time.

Your call though depending on how soft you like your apples and how crispy you like your toast.

Looks like bent toast.

The moment of truth. You have to flip this whole dish upside down. I was scared to death of this part. I didn’t think that caramel sauce would come out and everything would just be stuck to the inside of the pan. This did not happen. All of the butter in the bottom let it slide right out.

I put a baking sheet over the top of the dish, put a hand on each side of the pot. So each hand was holding the baking sheet firmly onto the pan. Then take a deep breath and FLIP.

I let mine sit for 10 seconds while I caught my breath. Then lifted off the pan to find:

Flipping this thing scared me.

Looks perfect! Slice this with a knife or pizza cutter and serve it up like pie. The caramel sauce almost acts as a syrup and the apples provide a bit of tang. Pretty delicious if you have the time to make it.

If you miss this game though, then there are the NFL Playoffs. Sometime in the next few weeks you are most likely going to watch a football game and you will need some snacks for this. One of my default snacks is homemade popcorn.

Salty and sweet. Can't go wrong.

I’m not really sure how the microwave popcorn industry has survived this long. I mean, I like microwaved popcorn if I’m at work or on the road or something, but if I’m at home it takes just a few more minutes to make real popcorn. Oh and it costs cents per bowl.

If you didn't know, corn is cheap.

I bought this whole bag for $.99. I’ll get probably 10-12 large bowls of popcorn from it. For this post, I made one batch of popcorn (about 10-12 cups) and then did two different things with it: one salty and one sweet.

Below is how I make my homemade popcorn and it is practically fail proof. Take a medium-sized pan and cover the bottom of it with kernels. Then cover those kernels with a layer of vegetable oil until all the kernels are just covered. No measuring or anything. Just do that.

One quick note. There are two or three different kinds of popcorn kernels. Some are fluffier and larger. I got just the normal yellow kernel for this recipe. The cooking process is the same no matter what you choose.

It's not as much oil as it looks.

Put the lid on this pot and stick it over medium heat. Then don’t touch it until the kernels start to pop. Should just take a few minutes.

Meanwhile, I prepped my curry salt.

Simple curry seasoning.

Curry Seasoning

- 1 Teaspoon curry powder
- 1 Teaspoon seasons salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon basil
- 1/2 Teaspoon salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon cumin

This amount of spice should be enough for a whole batch of popcorn unless you like it really spicy. Obviously you can make as much as you want and I encourage you to adjust according to your tastes.

What’s that I hear? By the time you mix all those things together, your kernels will probably be popping. This is the only tricky part of the situation and sorry I couldn’t take a photo of it but I was busy. It isn’t that hard. Just lift your pan a bit above the burner and shake back and forth. Don’t take the lid off. In fact, I like to hold the lid down with one hand while I shake with the other. You want to keep all of that steam trapped in there but move the unpopped kernels back and forth so they don’t burn to the bottom.

Should only take a minute or so for the popping to be done. You won’t hear any more popping and the kernels will most likely be hugging the top of your pan. Now you can take the lid off and pour it straight into a bowl. Ideally, you won’t have any unpopped kernels.

If you are doing the curry spice or just salt, do it right away while the kernels are hot.

Season this while hot if possible.

Like I said, I split up my bowl and curried up one half and reserved one half for the caramel side.

I’ve been making caramel corn from scratch for a few years now and I can guarantee you that it is much better than that stuff you get in Christmas tins (and that stuff isn’t so bad).

You’ll need these things:

Caramel deconstructed.

Caramel Corn

- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/2 Teaspoon salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 10 cups popcorn

First, preheat your oven to 250. Yes. 250. Then melt your butter in a medium saucepan and add in your light brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Keep stirring this over medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves completely. That will only take a minute. Then: Don’t touch it.

This is super easy.

This won’t burn unless you forget about it. Stay close but don’t stir it. It will start to bubble which is good. Let it bubble for about 5 minutes.

Getting close...

Then you need to go from watching to working. And you need to move pretty fast. Add your vanilla and your baking soda to the pan. When you add the baking soda, give it a quick stir. The baking soda will make it start to bubble even more. Take it off the heat and right away pour it over your popcorn.

This is no time to lollygag.

Then stir it together real well to combine evenly. Pour your popcorn into a baking dish and pop it in that oven.

Ready to bake. Low and slow.

This will need to cook for 1 hour at 250 and you need to stir it every 15 minutes. Trust me. It is worth it. Once an hour is up, pour your caramel corn out onto some parchment paper to cool. You could also just pour it out on your counter if it is super clean. Spread out your corn as much as you can so the kernels don’t clump too much.

Dogfish head siting!

I like to serve popcorn with a salty and sweet option. The curry is good. The caramel is good. Feel free to make one or the other, but when served together that spot in the middle where you get some curry and some caramel is absolutely perfect.

I promise once you make this stuff homemade you won’t be buying much of the microwaved stuff.