Healthier Gluten Free Christmas Crack Recipe

Did you know the original Christmas Crack recipe calls for saltine crackers which are loaded with seed oils or Ritz crackers which also have seed oils along with high fructose corn syrup and natural flavors? These ingredients can wreak havoc on your gut, hormones, inflammation and overall well being. I don’t want that for myself, my family or for you.

So let's make this easy recipe healthier without changing the deliciousness by using the ingredients below. I want to go into more detail about what makes these ingredients better choices so if that is an interest to you read until the end.

Ingredients used to make this healthier:

1 cup of grass fed butter
1 cup of Big Tree Organic Brown Coconut Sugar
11/2 cups of Pascha dark chocolate chips no sugar added
2 boxes of Simple Mills Honey Cinnamon Sweet Thins

Let's make this:

Line a sheet pan with non toxic parchment paper, then line the paper with the two boxes of crackers. Make sure the crackers are close together. Time to melt the butter and coconut brown sugar over the stovetop until smooth. Then pour the mixture over the crackers and make sure they are all completely covered by using a spatula. Bake in the oven at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Pull them out of the oven and now it’s time to melt the chocolate chips over the stovetop, you can use 1 tablespoon of organic coconut oil to make the chocolate thinner and easier to spread. Once they are melted you will pour the chocolate over the baked crackers then place in your freezer for 40 minutes. I melted ¼ cup of white pascha chips to drizzle over the crackers once they were pulled out of the freezer, then added them back in the freezer for ten minutes and took them out to break into pieces, then enjoyed taste testing them.

This recipe is a 10/10. Friendly Forewarning this healthier version is still called Christmas Crack for a reason. Personally I like to make it, enjoy a little and share the rest with others over the holiday season. This is a healthier version of the recipe but is not health food or something I consider healthy, but delicious?? Yes!!!

Let's chat about why I used the above specific ingredients and what makes them a better choice:

Grass fed butter over any other butter: Grass-fed butter is considered "better" for you than regular butter because cows fed a grass diet produce milk with a higher concentration of beneficial nutrients like conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), vitamins A and K2, and omega-3 fatty acids, which are linked to potential health benefits like improved heart health, reduced inflammation, and better bone density compared to butter from grain-fed cows; it also tends to have a better fatty acid profile with less saturated fat and more unsaturated fat.
Big Tree Organic Coconut Brown Sugar instead of brown sugar: Unrefined, low glycemic and rich in essential nutrients, our Brown Coconut Sugar is rooted in tradition. Minimally processed using the same ancient methods that are passed down generation to generation. Offers an incredibly delicious and better-for-you 1:1 replacement to cane sugar or brown sugar.
Why I use Pascha Chocolate Chips: Cacao beans are amazing plants - offering so many unique ingredients from one superfood bean (cacao nibs, cacao paste, cacao butter and chocolate liquor) and of course with huge health benefits (high in polyphenols and improving blood flow, naming two). Pascha Chocolate products are designed around what the cocoa bean provides us, they add very little more. Each Pascha Chocolate bar and chip is made with only the very finest limited organic ingredients. No emulsifiers (soy lecithin), stabilizers or anything which is remotely artificial and is used by others to control costs. Most of their products have three or less organic ingredients.
I chose the Simple Mills Sweet Thins crackers over the Ritz and Saltines because they do not have any seed oils, high fructose corn syrup or natural flavors. All the ingredients they use are real ingredients. No natural or artificial flavors, Grain Free, Corn Free, Gum Free, Paleo-Friendly.