Poor Man's Almond Roca

I've been making candy all week. My mom's recipe for caramels. My dad's recipe for fudge. Then my friend Amanda posted about toffee bars. Mmmmm…toffee bars. My mom used to make almond roca that was to die for but I've never attempted it and didn't have her recipe. So I took a look at Amanda's recipe link, made some of my own changes, and came up with this:

Faux Roca
1 pkg graham crackers
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups almonds, ground up in your food processor

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Use aluminum foil to line a 9x13 pan, then spray with cooking spray. 
• Use graham crackers to line the pan as close to the edges as you can get. You might need to break the crackers into smaller or skinnier pieces.
• Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add in brown sugar and stir. 
• Turn up the heat to medium high and bring the sugar to a nice frothy boil while you keep stirring. This should take about 5 minutes.
• Pour sugar mixture over crackers. Use a spatula to spread it out to cover all the crackers.
• Place pan oven for five minutes or until the sugar mixture is bubbling. (Took mine about 7 minutes.)
• Once it's out of the oven, evenly sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top and let them melt. 
• When melted, spread chocolate so it covers everything, making sure to keep it even.
• Before the chocolate cools, sprinkle nuts over the top until all chocolate is covered. Press them down into the chocolate. You may have nuts leftover and that's fine.
• Let cool completely.
• Break into pieces and enjoy!

The crunch from the crackers mixed with the toffee makes for a very similar roca experience and doesn't require a candy thermometer. And you can't go wrong with something smothered in chocolate and nuts.

What are your favorite Christmas treats?