The 2-Ingredient Trick For Homemade Thin Mint-Inspired Crackers

Some two-ingredient recipes like mashed banana-egg "pancakes" and unsweetened avocado chocolate mousse may not be to everyone's taste. Others, however, may have a wider appeal: Oreo crumbs and milk make a surprisingly tasty mug cake, while a two-ingredient summer punch made with Kool-Aid and Sprite (or generic drink powder and lemon-lime soda, if you're frugal) is greater than the sum of its parts. Yet another two-ingredient recipe that tastes better than it sounds is a Thin Mint copycat made with Ritz crackers and mint-flavored chocolate.

This recipe, in one form or another, seems to have been bouncing around the internet for well over a decade. Some slightly more complicated versions call for — gasp! — three ingredients since they start with plain chocolate and require you to go to the effort of adding your own peppermint extract. To reduce the ingredient list to just two, you'll need mint chocolate chips or chunks or mint-flavored chocolate candy. Mint-filled Andes candies will also work, as will a bar where the mint flavor is baked into the chocolate (Aldi's Moser Roth Dark Chocolate Mint Bar is one example). Melt the chocolate, dip the crackers, then let the Ritz sit for 15 minutes or so until the chocolate hardens. Keep these cookies in the fridge so the chocolate doesn't melt, or, for greater verisimilitude, stash them in the freezer with the Girl Scout cookies you bought last year.

If the idea of using Ritz crackers in a dessert strikes you as odd or even unappetizing, rest assured that you can't taste them in the finished cookie. In fact, Ritz crackers can even be used to make s'mores as a slightly saltier graham cracker stand-in. Ritz crackers are also the main ingredient in mock apple pie, a Depression-era recipe once printed on the back of the cracker box.

Yet another recipe that often calls for saltines but can also be made with Ritz crackers is something known as Ritz or saltine toffee. It's made by covering crackers with a toffee coating made with butter and brown sugar, then baking the crackers for just a few minutes until the topping is soft, bubbly, and hot enough to melt a bag of chocolate chips with its residual heat. Once the chocolate melts, it's spread out over the toffee, where it hardens to form a solid coating. Before it sets, though, you can garnish it with colored sprinkles, chopped nuts, or smashed candy canes to look nice and Christmassy.