‘Tis the season …

… for lots and lots of butter. That’s right. Even more than usual. I’m talking pounds of it. Restaurant-size vats. Because it’s time for my famous saltine cracker toffee. A quartet of the most nutritionally devoid—yet dangerously irresistible—ingredients on the planet: chocolate, refined carbs, sugar and BUTTAH.

This is a combination more addictive than crack, and as a holiday present, it beats the hell out of scented shower gel and Christmas-shaped loofas.

You’ll need:

A couple sleeves of saltine crackers

1 cup of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

2 cups of chocolate chips (your choice of white, milk or dark chocolate)

Nuts, sprinkles or other toppings of your choice

Set your oven to 375 degrees. Place a layer of tin foil over a cookie sheet (with sides, otherwise the toffee will drip off the sides when you pour it over the crackers). Grease the foil and place a single layer of saltines, salt side up, as close as possible without overlapping them, on the cookie sheet. Set aside. In sauce pan, melt the butter over medium high heat and add the brown sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves and allow the mixture to come to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, let it cook for another 3 minutes. Slowly drizzle the toffee over the crackers—it can take practice to get the toffee evenly distributed, but don’t stress it too much. Stick it in the oven for about 5-8 minutes, or until the toffee looks very bubbly. You’ll know if it starts to burn—the color begins to turn dark quickly and you can see the crackers getting a little charred.

Remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle the chocolate chips over the crackers and toffee.

Allow them to melt for a few minutes, and then spread the chocolate around with a silicone spatula. Top with any other ingredients (nuts, dried fruit, sprinkles). I’m thinking I might venture even further into cardiac-blockage territory this year and top a batch or two with bacon …

Allow to cool, then chill in the freezer or refrigerator. Once fully chilled, peel off the tinfoil and break into pieces.

A warning—one pan of this stuff will never suffice.