What A Crock!

Okay! Before I go any further let me go ahead and admit how totally lame this crock pot post is going to be. I have really had no reason to make anything in the crock pot since we have been grilling out every night, but I realized I needed to have one for my self imposed challenge. I also wanted to make sure I could make it with ingredients I already had in the house. With that out of the way allow me to introduce you to:





Crock Pot Candy


1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 12 ounce package chocolate bits
2 cups fritos, crushed but not crumbed
2 cups pretzels,crushed but not crumbed
1 cup peanuts, chopped

Line a cookie sheet with either parchment paper or foil and set aside
Put butter, brown sugar, peanut butter, and chocolate bits in a crock pot set on low heat. Put the lid on it and walk away and do all kinds of things for about 1 hour then check to see how melted it is. If you can stir it and it is smooth you are ready to add the salty stuff. If not go fold clothes and sweep the deck for about 30 more minutes. When it is all smooth and melty stir in the Friito and pretzel pieces. Quickly take the crock to the prepared pan using pot holders. ( Trust me on this one grasshopper. The crock gets hot!) Spread the mixture onto the pan in a mostly even layer. Pop into the freezer for about 20 minutes then break into pieces similar to bark candies.

Now it is the verdict time. First want to know what kind of idiot thought it would be a good idea to put Fritos into chocolate. I love chocolate and even me, a die hard chocolate lover, did not like the flavor combination. The chocolate did not alter the Frito flavor at all. Chocolate covered pretzels are good. Chocolate covered peanuts are good. Chocolate covered Fritos are bad.
Really bad...So bad that I tossed the entire recipe! 12 ounces of otherwise perfectly decent chocolate in the trash. ( I am wiping tears from my eyes as I type this) I wonder if Pandora has a funeral dirge station? I could have had music and a proper burial instead of a sea funeral down the disposal.

Other than my corn chip/chocolate aversion the candy was very soft, not like a bark at all. The candy had a really nice mouth feel. It was just the taste I found objectionable...really objectionable...really, really objectionable. Come to think of it, when we sit down in the summer to eat corn on the cob I have never said to The Hub " Let's leave the butter in the fridge and get some Hershey's syrup instead"

Thinking a different approach might have been to use butterscotch chips and almond butter rather than the peanut butter, Rice Chex rather than Fritos, and pretzels. ( No nuts). Also I have no idea why anyone but me would make this in the crock pot. The entire thing would have melted in a double boiler in about 15 minutes from start to finish and then the candy pot would fit right in the dishwasher. No hand washing and less time. But to be perfectly honest I will never try this again.


FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mea culpa!