The Petits Chefs are back for Term 3!
We started this week with a timely recipe for some of our boys – a “Passover favourite” as one of my friends told me. When I was planning the term, I noticed that Easter and Passover both fell in the same week so I wanted to give a nod to both in both of my clubs (this term I’m running a second club for younger boys, also, you can check out their work every Wednesday on my Instagram feed or under #cookingbasicsclub).
For the older boys, I thought it would be fun to make that “Passover favourite” that a friend reminded me about – Chocolate-Covered Caramelized Matzoh (or Saltine) Crunch. It looked like a nice simple recipe to start the term off with and since we only had a small group of boys (traditionally the group is smaller this term because there are so many sports going on), I figured we’d be able to get this done in no time. Best laid plans and all…
We got our caramel made, no problem…
Since it’s just butter and sugar, it’s a little less dangerous than making a hard caramel, melting sugar only, but we were still very careful. We had a number of eager “clock watchers” to make sure it cooked for exactly three minutes…
Meanwhile…
(just like a jigsaw puzzle!)
And then…
We popped that in the oven to bake for 15 minutes. This term our entire kitchen facilities are under removation so our kitchen crew is operating out of a mobile kitchen in a truck in our parking lot. We’d never used the ovens before there (and, in fact, this is the only time I had planned on using them for the entire term since it’s too “unknown” to rely on – also, it’s far from the lab) so I had my fingers crossed…
Meanwhile, back in the lab, we weighed our chocolate chips and prepared a second batch with saltines (an alternative if you can’t find matzoh which was nearly me, trying to buy it on the day before Passover started!) that we baked in our tiny toaster oven…
Yup, that’s really it – crackers, butter, sugar (+ vanilla and salt) and chocolate.
Back in the big oven…
Uh, yeah, you’ll see it’s a little toasty on the edges (and, to be honest, all over!). Not that that stopped us from covering the caramel in choclate and not that it stopped people eating this 😉
A life lesson: Watch your caramel closely. Especially in an untested oven.
Meanwhile, the saltine version made it into the fridge got a good amount of time chilling and cut up into pieces beautifully…
Enjoyed by my colleagues the following day. As in, REALLY enjoyed by my colleagues!
Get the recipe for David Lebovitz’s Chocolate-Covered Caramelized Matzoh Crunch here. Make some. And thanks me and David later.
Wow. A few of this would not have gone amiss at the Mr. Neil workplace. Alas, those RSGC colleagues scarfed them all. 😉
I promise to make these soon!
I left a note on Facebook and I’ll say it again…. “YUM”
It really is!