CARAMILK CHRISTMAS CRACK

20m prep 20m cook

10 Ingredients

• 1/2 x 225g box Jatz crackers

• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar

• 185g butter, chopped

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 2 x 180g blocks Caramilk chocolate, melted

5 Method Steps

Step 1

Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Grease a 1.5cm-deep, 24cm x 33.5cm baking tray. Line base and sides with baking paper, extending paper 2cm above edges of tray.

Step 2

Arrange crackers in a single layer on base of prepared tray, trimming crackers to ft and fll any gaps.

Step 3

Place brown sugar, butter and salt in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 to 6 minutes or until butter is melted and sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil. Cook, stirring constantly, for a further 2 to 3 minutes or until

16 servings

• 100g dark chocolate, melted

• 2 x 20g packets giant chocolate stars

• Green and red mini m&m’s, to decorate

• Mint favoured m&m’s, to decorate

• Glamour and sparkle sprinkles, to decorate mixture has thickened. Remove from heat.

Step 4

Carefully and slowly pour mixture over crackers to cover evenly (see notes). Bake for 5 to 8 minutes or until mixture is bubbling. Carefully remove from oven and stand for 2 minutes. Drizzle with melted Caramilk. Spread gently and evenly to cover. Set aside for 15 minutes to cool. Refrigerate for 10 minutes or until Caramilk has just set.

Step 5

Working quickly, drizzle top of crack with melted dark chocolate. Decorate with chocolate stars, m&m’s and sprinkles. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until frm. Lift crack from pan. Using a warm, sharp knife, cut into pieces. Serve.

Max Crus is a Clarence Valley-based wine writer and Grape Expectations is now in its 26th year of publication. Find out more about Max or sign up for his weekly reviews and musings by visiting maxcrus.com.au

Grape Expectations by Max Crus

Max Crus

Queueing at a shop can be very trying unless there’s enough staff to make you think “I wish these guys were running my life”.

However this has only happened twice. Most of the time it’s like the other day, every day, except there was an extra contributing annoyance on this occasion, a young mum asking her 3-year-old offspring what it wanted… in a bakery!

Riversands Wines St George (Qld) ‘Sunset’ Vermentino 2023, $32.

Riversands make a beverage called ‘Fu*#ing Good Port’ too, spelled out fully, perfect for the new breed of parenting. Their perfectly palatable vermentino however is much more family friendly, and kids are unlikely to want it because it is faintly green. 8.8/10.

I’m next in line and luckily the last because this was clearly going to take some time, indeed enough to ponder the true meaning of existence and why Donald Trump became president, and along with other rightwing-nut-jobs managed to change the world’s social structure and meaning of truth so radically I wonder if I’ll make it out of the

Riversands Wines St George (Qld) ‘The Bold Shepherd’ Saperavi Ruby Cabernet, 2022, $35. You would think something made at the westernmost winery of Queensland would have a bucket of alcohol, but it’s only 12.8 per cent and you would think something with 12.8 would not feel full bodied and quite luscious, fragrant and shop before it all ends. lovely, but this version of the great Russian grape is exactly that. 9.2/10.

Okay, I know the common phrase “what would you know, you don’t have kids?” To which a friend once correctly replied, “while that is true, I do have a brain”, most apt in this instance, as always, given that asking a 3-year-old child in a cake shop was as fraught as asking Donald Trump if he’d like the keys to the missile silo.

Coriole McLaren Vale Nero (Nero d’Avola, The New Australian Connection), 2023, $30. Earlier versions were ‘dry as a wooden god’ as Mum would say, which was good parental advice. 2023 is too young to make decisions for itself but this year’s model is much