Tasty and easy to make, brittle and toffee are old-fashioned candies that deserve a spot in the decked-out halls of iconic Christmas treats. We're sharing our best recipes to make right now.
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Whipping up a batch of brittle or toffee, like the Almond Croquant shown here, is a fast and fun DIY project where all skill levels will find success. What's more, brittles and toffees make exceptionally good homemade gifts for friends and family near and far. The room temperature shelf-life of a few weeks means there's no worrying about dry ice and best-by dates. Your sweet treats are also sturdy enough to be piled into a tin box, and even if some breakage occurs, no one will be able to tell—unlike a crumbly cookie, these candies look their best when broken into more abstract and jagged pieces.
Though brittle and toffee are a similar kind of candy, there are a couple of distinctions that make each unique. Brittle typically appears translucent and glassy, with a snappy bite and light caramel flavor. There are almost always a ton of nuts or seeds folded into the mix to keep the texture interesting, and only occasionally will a brittle include a little butter. With toffee, butter is an essential ingredient that is used in generous quantities; the outcome is an opaquer candy with a toastier flavor and softer crunch. In toffee, nuts are often incorporated, too, but in smaller amounts. It is common for recipes like to complement the buttery caramel flavor of the toffee with a thin layer of tempered chocolate on top.
Before diving in with these 10 unique recipes, here are a few universal tips to keep in mind if you are new to the candy-making game: Use a light-colored saucepan for cooking the sugar mixture so you can keep a close eye on the ever-changing color—it can turn from perfect amber to a bitter black faster than you'd think. To prevent the mixture from potentially bubbling up over the pan, lightly spray the sides of the saucepan with cooking spray. And lastly, using a candy thermometer to gauge when the candy is ready will be a huge help and make the process more goof-proof, but here's a way to pull it off without one: spoon a little of the sugar syrup onto some very icy water. Let it sit for 10 seconds then pull it out. Your mixture is done when you can cleanly break the test piece in half.
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Basic Brittle
This brittle recipe serves as a blank canvas for several creative and gourmet flavorings. Make the pine nut and rosemary variation and crumble some over a slice of olive oil cake, or enjoy the pepita-lavender flavor with a cup of Earl Grey.
A sprinkle of gourmet flaky sea salt adds a delightful savory touch to this sweet, buttery toffee, making it a natural candidate for gifting.
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Spiced Cashew-Coconut Brittle
Here's a fragrant brittle with a super light and crunchy texture that's made by incorporating a little baking soda into the recipe; it creates tiny air pockets as the candy cooks.
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Sweet-and-Smoky Brittle
This brittle is so full of nuts and pepitas that it breaks up into tasty clusters that will look great in a mason jar with a bow on top. A little cayenne and smoky adobo sauce add an addictive savory side to this snack.
Cloaked in a layer of bittersweet chocolate and chopped hazelnuts, this is one special toffee. For a polished presentation, package the toffee in button-closure envelopes and use these printable chocolate and hazelnut flavor stamps.
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Chocolate-Pecan Butter Crunch
A classic American toffee, this confection is topped with a generous layer of melted chocolate and comes fully loaded with buttery pecans.
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Turtle Brittle
This crunchier riff on chewy turtle candies uses all of the favorite flavors of caramel, chocolate, and pecans to make a gift-worthy treat.
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Ginger-Sesame Brittle
No nuts here! This brittle uses sesame seeds and bits of sweet-and-spicy candied ginger to balance the flavor and enhance the texture.
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Seeded Honeycomb Brittle
Honeycomb brittle has a texture that is lighter than air and the distinct flavor of, you guessed it, honey. The air bubbles, created by the addition of baking soda, are what give it the appearance of a honeycomb.
Brittles are typically composed mostly of sugar, while toffees contain a fair amount of butter and in some cases milk. This makes toffees fuller and richer in taste, while brittles are more purely sweet and sugary. Brittles are also much thinner than most toffees.
Simmering the syrup for English toffee to the requisite 300°F temperature can (and should) be a slow process — up to 20 minutes or so. Don't hurry this gradual transformation; syrup that doesn't reach 300°F, or close to it, will make candy with timid flavor and chewy (not crunchy) texture.
If the two elements melt unevenly it can result in separation. If you have good stovetop burners, we recommend turning them to medium-low to allow the butter and sugar to melt gently in the beginning stages. If the heat is too high, but butter might melt too quickly and can separate from the sugar.
Americanized toffee may include nuts, while a completely traditional British toffee will not. On the other hand, English toffee uses pure cane sugar, brown sugar, or molasses as its sweet base and always involves chocolate.
It's important while the toffee cooks to only stir it occasionally. Constant stirring can cause the toffee to crystallize and separate. For those of you that need to know exactly how often you should stir, I would suggest erring on the side of not stirring more than stirring.
Cream of tartar is a white powder sold in the baking aisle that's commonly used to stabilize whipped egg whites in meringues and cakes, prevent sugar crystallization in candies and caramel, and act as the activating ingredient in baking powder.
Brittles and toffees accumulate small amounts of acid from the browning reactions that occur during cooking. This is one reason why the baking soda is added at the end of cooking. The soda reacts with the acid to make bubbles, and the syrup foams.
You need a very sturdy pan which is KEY to even heat distribution. Thinner, cheaper pans can scorch the cooking candy and/or cook it unevenly. Here are some great choices: Anolon Nouvelle Copper and Cooks Standard. I own a couple pricier copper pots because of the amount of candy I make.
Butter is added in the final stages to add flavor and smoothness and inhibit large crystal formation. Use unsalted butter so you can add a small amount of salt (¼ teaspoon per stick of butter) to the sugar/liquid mixture.
If the butterfat separates out then usually this is due to the mixture being either heated or cooled too quickly, which "shocks" the mixture and causes the fat to separate out. It can also be caused by the mixture being heated unevenly (if the pan has a thin base and has hot spots).
The English toffee eaten with regularity in America is also called buttercrunch. What's the difference? Primarily, the difference rests in the ingredients. Toffee in Britain is made with brown sugar, whereas buttercrunch is made with white granulated sugar.
So, I highly recommend using a candy thermometer to get the best results. Toffee (as opposed to butterscotch) should reach about 285°F. This ended up being the perfect temperature for the toffee to harden after being poured onto the baking sheet.
Both have been enjoyed for centuries and have various cultural histories. The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette' for Saturday 28 July 1951 (p2) says that "Cinder toffee [is] said to come from Prudhoe", and it does seem to be the case that most early receipts are from North Eastern England or Southern Scotland.
The difference between toffee and caramel is that caramel is made with white granulated sugar and cooked to 340 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas toffee is made with butter and brown sugar and cooked to 295 - 309 degrees Fahrenheit.
Toffee is a hard candy made by cooking a sugar syrup with butter to the hard crack stage, 300–310°F (149–154°C), and then pouring it out to cool. It can have inclusions or not, and it can be made either very dense and hard or can be lightened by adding baking soda when the candy is almost done cooking .
Brittle is a type of confection consisting of flat broken pieces of hard sugar candy embedded with nuts such as pecans, almonds, or peanuts, and which are usually less than 1 cm thick.
Pralines have a lot in common with nut brittle, with the difference being mostly in the addition of cream and the cooking temperature––the sugary syrup used to coat pralines is heated to a soft-ball consistency, a lower temperature than the hard-crack stage of peanut brittle.
Introduction: My name is Annamae Dooley, I am a witty, quaint, lovely, clever, rich, sparkling, powerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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