Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Best Brittle You've Ever Had

This past Christmas I made a batch of the best nut brittle I've ever had. The recipe is courtesy of Chef Chelsea Higgins at Scottsdale Community College, though I've trimmed it down some to fit a regular home-sized sheet pan. Aside from having the perfect balance of sweet and salty, without a hint of being chewy; this is the easiest treat you will ever make. All you need is a sauce pan, a spoon to stir, and some elbow grease. I prefer cashews but peanuts or pecans are also yummy.

How to make it:

Ingredients

1/2 Vanilla bean, scraped -- or 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 3/4 C nuts

Just shy of 1/2 C of granulated sugar

1/8 C Corn Syrup

5/8 C Butter (this is a stick + 1 T)

1/8 C Honey

1 tsp salt

Have a greased sheet pan ready (or you can put on a Silpat and forget about the greasing) Put all ingredients into a big enough saucepot and cook over medium high heat while stirring constantly. It's done when it's just starts to turn a dark caramel color (mahogany). Poor onto sheet pan and spread around as much as you can. Once cooled, you can break it up and give as a gift or hoarde for yourself with a happy sugar high! The picture below shows what my batch looked like when it was cooling in the sheet pan.