Christmas Toffee Pretzel Bark

A stack of holiday toffee bark pieces topped with chocolate, red and green candy-coated chocolates, pretzel bits, and festive sprinkles sits on a white surface.

5 from 1 vote

Christmas Toffee Pretzel Bark

🎄🧑🏻‍🎄 Similar to saltine toffee, but this is made with pretzels rather than saltines! Crunchy, chewy, salty, sweet, caramely, it's amazing! A buttery brown sugar sauce is poured over pretzels to create toffee vibes. Melted chocolate, M&M's, and sprinkles add festive finishing touches to this easy dessert that keeps for weeks so it's perfect for gifting or cookie exchanges!

Prep Time10

Cook Time10

Cooling & Setting Up1

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Dessert

Keyword: christmas bark, Christmas candy, Christmas pretzel crack, Christmas pretzel toffee, Christmas toffee pretzel bark

Servings:

Calories: 306cal

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

Storage: Bark will keep airtight at room temperature for at least two weeks. I personally think it's better to keep it at room temperature than in the fridge or freezer. If you keep it in the fridge or freezer, it will last for many months, noting that when you remove it, it will be rock hard (take care of your teeth) and the chocolate will have a duller appearance, which doesn't effect taste. Because it keeps so well at room temperature, it's great for gifting or cookie exchanges.

Nutrition