Similar to saltine toffee, but this 🎄🧑🏻🎄 Christmas Toffee Pretzel Bark is made with pretzels rather than saltines! Crunchy, chewy, salty, sweet, caramely, it’s amazing! A buttery caramel sauce is poured over pretzels for toffee inspiration while melted chocolate, M&M’s, and sprinkles add festive finishing touches to this easy dessert! It keeps for weeks so it’s perfect for gifting or cookie exchanges!
Easy Christmas Toffee Pretzel Bark Recipe
- I’ve got so many barks and toffees but never one make with pretzels until now! Loaded Christmas Bark, Chocolate Saltine Toffee, Christmas Crack (I didn’t name it, it’s been around decades), and Graham Cracker Toffee are always hits around the holidays! This recipe also goes by Pretzel Crack in case you’re wondering.
- And this new version is no exception because it’s practically no-bake, shy of about 7 minutes, but seriously so easy.
- I love that there are so many textures and flavors in every bite. The crunchy salty pretzels, the sweet toffee, the crispiness of M&Ms on top of the chocolate, and just a lovely salty-sweet treat that’ll have you reaching for one more piece!
- Because it’s shelf-stable at room temp for weeks, it makes great gifts including hostess gifts, for teachers and coaches, friends and family, and cookie exchanges.
Ingredients in Christmas Pretzel Bark Recipe with M&Ms
Butter: I like salted butter because I am a sucker for salty-sweet treats but if you’d rather use unsalted butter, that’s completely fine.
Light brown sugar: It gives the perfect color and taste when it’s mixed into melted butter. Dark brown sugar would be almost too intense for me.
Semi-sweet chocolate chips: Use chocolate chips that enjoy and for me, that’s semi-sweet. Milk chocolate chips are fine if you prefer sweeter chocolate and so is dark chocolate. You could probably add half as peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips if you’d like to experiment.
M&Ms and sprinkles, and other ideas: I used a bag of plain holiday red and green M&Ms but you can use any color or type of M&Ms you’d like. They have some really interesting seasonal flavors these days. Use festive sprinkles of your choice. Alternatively, you can use crushed candy canes if you want to take this into a peppermint direction. Or add chopped nuts such as walnuts or pecans work too.
Almond bark, food coloring – optional: As desired, you can melt almond bark and add the red and green food coloring. Almond bark melts easier and more smoothly than white chocolate does, but it would also work. I prefer gel food coloring to other types of food coloring. Add sprinkles optionally to taste.
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How To Make Christmas Pretzel Toffee Bark
- Ling a baking sheet with parchment or nonstick foil and place mini pretzels on top in a single layer.
- To a small saucepan, add the butter, brown sugar, cook over medium heat to melt, about 2-3 minutes, or until a caramel sauce has formed, and then let it bubble for another minute. No candy thermometer needed.
- Pour it over the pretzels and bake for about 5-7 minutes.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven, sprinkle with chocolate chips, and spread them into the caramel sauce so they melt.
- Sprinkle M&Ms and sprinkles over the melty chocolate. A sprinkle of sea salt at the end will also amp up the salty-sweet aspect.
- f desired, you can melt almond bark and add food coloring to be drizzled over the bark. Allow bark to set up before breaking into pieces.
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for step-by-step photos and process shots of the cooking process.
Christmas Toffee Pretzel Bark
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter, I prefer it to balance the sweetness but you can use unsalted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 6 cups small pretzels twists, (about 1/2 bag, or enough to cover the baking sheet)
- 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate may be substituted if you prefer more sweetness
- 1 cup red and green M&Ms, or as needed
- Christmas sprinkles, as needed
- 2 squares almond bark, divided and melted; optional (about 2 ounces, divided)
- red food coloring, as needed; optional (I prefer gel)
- green food coloring, as needed; optional (I prefer gel)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with either parchment paper OR nonstick foil, and spray both extremely well with cooking spray. Tip -If you're using foil, make sure it's the kind that is linked above in the equipment section (Reynolds Heavy Duty Nonstick). Do not use bargain foil because it will stick, rip, and you'll have a mess.
- Evenly sprinkle the pretzels over the baking sheet; set aside.
- To a medium saucepan, add the butter, brown sugar, and heat over medium-high or medium heat to melt. Stir nearly continuously. Once it's bubbling and melted, allow it to simmer and bubble gently for an additional 1 minute. Tip – You're creating caramel sauce here and the extra simmering will allow it to have a bit more thickness, not enough to really 'see' right now, but later on it's helpful.
- Pour the sauce over the pretzels and place the baking sheet in the oven. Bake for about 7 minutes to continue to cook the caramel sauce. Rotate pan once midway through baking if desired. Tip – Get your chocolate chips ready.
- Remove the pan from the oven and evenly sprinkle with the chocolate chips. Using an offset spatula or knife, work to melt and spread them into the caramel layer, covering the entire surface with chocolate. Tip – Depending on what brand of chocolate chips you use, they may be resistant to melting. In my opinion, Trader Joe's and Hershey's melt easily, Nestle Tollhouse does not. If they're not melting well, pop the baking sheet back into the oven for 1-2 minutes, remove, and they should spread easily.
- Evenly sprinkle with M&M's and sprinkles, as desired, before the chocolate sets up.
- Optionally, melt the almond bark in two small microwave-safe bowls. Once melted, add red food coloring to one bowl and green to the other, and stir using two small spoons to mix and combine; add additional food coloring until the desired shade or intensity has been reached.
- If you want to be "extra" about it, you can transfer the colored almond bark into two small ziptop baggies, seal, and snip the corner of each, and then drizzle that over the bark.In reality (what I would do), you can just use the spoons you used to stir the food coloring into the almond bark, and carefully drizzle the colors over the bark. This isn't a dessert that requires perfection nor precision and you waste more in my opinion transferring into baggies, but it's up to you.
- Allow bark to cool completely before enjoying. Cooling and Setting Up Tips – I personally recommend allowing the bark to cool on your countertop, at room temperature, for as long as it takes to set up, rather than placing it in the fridge. In a cold wintertime kitchen, an hour or two is likely all that it'll need. If you chill it in the fridge, the chocolate will take on a more dull appearance from condensation that inevitably forms. If you don't care about that, or are in a rush, chilling in the fridge or even freezer are fine. Chill until set, however long it takes, however you're chilling it.
- You can either break it apart into pieces or you can transfer the whole thing on the parchment or foil to a large cutting board, and with a very sharp knife, you can attempt to slice it if you're trying to be more precise. You may or may not have luck since this is an imperfect dessert. Serve and enjoy.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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