Easy Peanut Butter Saltine Cracker Candy

This easy peanut butter saltine cracker candy is a great treat. The combo of sweet and salty is perfect! Plus, the steps for this recipe are simple, and you can make this candy as a delicious homemade gift for any occasion. Most people enjoy the chocolate peanut butter combo and love the layered candy bar. This post is all about peanut butter saltine cracker candy.

As someone who grew up with my mom and sisters making this recipe all of the time, I had to share it on the blog. It is quite the candy treat, and it is super easy to make. We never added peanut butter to the recipe as a kid, but with a love for anything with peanut butter, I just had to add it into this sweet and salty candy.

With such simple ingredients, you may just have these ingredients on hand. In my family, very few people don’t have saltines in their pantry. With my grandmother always carrying around a bag of saltines in her purse, everyone in the family has them as a staple in their pantry. She would be highly disappointed to arrive at our houses if we didn’t have saltines and ginger ale on hand. When this happens, there is a lecture that follows about the importance of these two items being in the house at all times.

With the somewhat dull taste of a saltine, it is a nice change to sweeten this bland cracker up a bit. For most people other than my gram, they would love to use their crackers in a fun way with chocolate and peanut butter. Yes, you can make a cracker into candy. It is super simple and super delicious. Just follow the steps below, and you will get this delicious treat done quickly and perfectly.

This post is all about peanut butter saltine cracker candy.

Table of Contents

Peanut Butter Saltine Cracker Candy

Step 1: Preheat Oven

Before you prepare any of the ingredients, preheat the oven to 350°. You will use the oven to bake each layer of the candy bar.

Step 2: Line Up the Saltines

Then, on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper, line up approximately 50 crackers. That’s about one and a half sleeves of crackers. Make sure to put parchment paper down or you can use butter or cooking spray to prepare the sheet. Either way, don’t forget to put something down before you put the crackers because if not, the crackers will be very difficult to remove from the tray.

Step 3: Butter and Brown Sugar Combo

Then, add two sticks of butter and a cup of brown sugar into a pot on medium-low. I always use salted butter, but unsalted will work as well. First, slice up the butter, let that melt a little, and then toss in the brown sugar.

Be sure to stir these ingredients together the entire time until they boil.

Once they boil, stir as necessary so that the combo doesn’t burn.

You want the combination to boil for at least three minutes. Be sure to achieve a consistency that looks like the photo below in order to prepare the perfect base layer for this saltine cracker candy.

This butter brown sugar combo will give the candy a harder finish that solidifies nicely. Also, this will eliminate the chance that these crackers are too sticky to enjoy.

Step 4: Pour Over Saltines & Bake

Then, pour the carmel color mixture over the crackers and bake it in the oven for a total of five minutes. By doing this, you are essentially preparing the candy topping to harden over the crackers once refrigerated. The process smells amazing.

Step 5: The Chocolate Chips

As soon as you take the cookie sheet out of the oven, evenly sprinkle a bag of milk chocolate chips all over the top. Most bags of chocolate chips are about 12oz. If you are more of a dark chocolate person, you can use those instead of the milk chocolate chips. Either way, the chips are the next layer to this saltine candy bar treat.

Step 6: Bake & Even

Then, bake the chips for two minutes. Once you take the cookie tray out of the oven, smear the chocolate chips over the top of the crackers. You can use a spatular to do this. Also, a butter knife will work too. With the additional heat factor, the chips will easily spread all over the top of the crackers. It will be very hard to resist tasting this process.

Step 7: The Peanut Butter Baking Chips

Then, add a bag of peanut butter baking chips over the top of the chocolate layer. I used these peanut butter chips by Reese’s. They are quite delicious! Of course, any brand of chips will work.

Step 8: Bake & Even

Bake the peanut butter chips for two minutes. As soon as you take the pan out of the oven, take a spatula and smooth the peanut butter chips over the chocolate layer evenly. This is the last layer of the candy process.

Why Do People Love Chocolate and Peanut Butter?

Some might wonder why I always go to that sweet and salty combo of peanut butter and chocolate for so many of my posted recipes. I did a little research as to why this combo is so good.

According MIC.com, the pleasing taste of biting into a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is partially thanks to a phenomenon called “dynamic sensory contrast,” Gregory Ziegler, a Penn State University professor of food science who studies chocolate, said in a phone interview. Ziegler explained that our taste buds love when foods have contrasting textures.

Thank goodness for that dynamic sensory contrast as it is so delicious in this saltine cracker candy recipe.

Step 9: Refrigerate or Freeze

Then, refrigerate the candy for at least three hours. You could also freeze it for about twenty minutes. I prefer to refrigerate it because it is easier to break it up. Of course, the freezer makes the process quicker.