I'm chef Susie with this cafe online and welcome to our live session this morning today I'm going to be making brittle it's super easy and just a few ingredients you're gonna be cooking some sugar on the stove then we'll be adding our nuts this will be ready to go these are great for gifts and with a holiday season coming you'll be sure to enjoy these there's a lot of different flavors you can explore a lot of different things with these Brittles but since our sugar is going to take a little bit let's go ahead and get this on the stove and then we'll chat about some different flavors okay so on the stove right now I have the sugar and that corn syrup the light corn syrup and the water and what we're going to do is we're going to bring this to a boil it's going to boil for a little while keep that in mind it's going to start to turn like a golden color we're going to boil this until it's about 240 degrees then we're going to go ahead and add our nuts and then we're going to finish this off up to 300 degrees and then we'll be adding our baking soda and our vanilla and a little bit of water and some butter too okay so let's go ahead and get this started it's like I said it's going to be boiling four little vials can take a little time we're going to watch it while we're talking a little bit so after this mixture with the nuts in it comes up to 300 degrees we're going to be adding the baking soda the vanilla and the water is to dissolve the baking soda to be sure that it's incorporated in here correctly because you can get some lumps in your baking soda I need they may not always come out in the mixing so we're going to be diluting it so I've got baking soda with a little bit of water and some vanilla hey so this is gonna go in at the end with the butter I'm using unsalted butter for caramel it's nice to use salted butter as well you can just explore so much different flavors when you're making these brittles okay and please let me know if you have any questions okay so our mixture is starting to warm up a little bit it's going to be coming to simmer like I said this is going to be taking a little while so we're gonna go ahead and turn it up we don't want this to get too hot want to keep an eye on it I've got my temperature my thermometer at hand to take the temperature I'm gonna be watching for this to get to 240 degrees so in the meantime let's talk a little bit about flavors with our brittles so our brittle is going to be nice and crisp it's a candy like and the baking soda it adds some flavor to this and it adds a little bit of depth in color and it's also adds some air too which is going to make the brittle easier to crack and easier to eat it's more desirable than if you were just using the straight sugar there are some recipes they don't call for baking soda in them those are fine too once you start exploring these recipes you're gonna find a lot of different recipes so definitely have fun with them this is just a basic recipe to work off of but definitely try some others and I like the brittle recipes with the baking soda in them but you will see them without baking soda so this is starting to simmer we're just gonna kind of leave it work on its own since everything is dissolved let's go ahead and just give it another little spin to be sure that everything is dissolved there's not going to be any granulated sugar at the bottom to burn so it's okay so this is okay on its own we're gonna just keep an eye on it and we're gonna check the temperature here in just a minute so let's get back to the flavors so I'm going to be putting some vanilla and this on this mixture it's gonna give it a nice flavor you can use any extract you can even use some candy oils maybe some oil of cinnamon really nice you can even use some powdered cinnamon some cayenne pepper really nice you can give these a little bit of snap there's just so many things that you can do with these be careful when adding any liquids to this I've got my liquid vanilla which is not much it's just about a teaspoon teaspoon and a half but be careful if you're adding liquids to dry things like the nuts are okay dried fruits are great cherries raisins apricots all those type of things great for brittles so today we're going to be adding some cashews to our brittle these are toasted ahead of time then I'm gonna sprinkle a few of these nice green pumpkin seeds on top which have also been toasted ahead of time you can use any nut mixture almonds are nice especially the whole almonds with the skins look really great so definitely try some different flavors and textures with your brittles so I'm seeing a little bit of color so I just want to check this temperature remember we're looking for 240 degrees to be very careful this is very hot okay so we're getting a little bit of color we're getting up near you know over the hundred mark which is good we're just gonna be keeping an eye on this once you do these a few times you can kind of tell by the color be careful that you don't let it go too far because it's going to start to smoke on you too so as far as thermometers thank you quite a bit of noise here okay okay so with these brittles to some other flavors that you can add to these chocolate you can drizzle some chocolate on top after it's set up you can cover the whole top in chocolate you can just use so many things you can put chopped up candies on these you can put sprinkles you can real each add them up for the holidays so definitely keep this in mind for some gifts for the holiday you can packaged them up nicely okay so we're just you know we're turning color a little bit but not quite there it's going to take a while so just be patient once we have the nuts in the mix we're going to continually stir it you can get a little bit of toasting with the nuts if you leave them sit in the bottom which is okay if you want some toasting but be careful because they can get too dark so the nuts are added into the mixture before it's ready because it helps with the toasting it helps to incorporate them and it's also a lot easier to mix in when this mixture is still a little looser before it gets to 300 degree mark let's go ahead and take our temperature and see where we're at we're getting there okay about maybe 20 more degrees to go and please let me know if you have any questions or if you tried these riddles before definitely limitless combinations that you can do with these as far as extracts like I said I've got the vanilla orange would be super nice with this a rum would be nice even to coconut you could even use toasted coconut too if you're a coconut lover maybe some dried pineapples there's just so many different things that you can do with the Brittles they set up firm very hard takes about an hour and then you can just snap them and package them or plate them however you want to serve them okay and be mindful if you're making this I made some brittle last night on a gas range you'd be careful if your flame is coming around the side of your pot you don't want that because it can actually scorch the outside you'll see it start to turn real Brown around the outside and that's a telltale sign that you need to mix it real quick and turn your flame down so just be careful these electric these electric burners are great to use and so is gas but be careful that the flame is not coming around the side so in the light of baking you can really cinch things by doing that especially with your sauces and this is something that the flame will really affect if it comes around the outside of the pot okay so with sugar it seems to come to a standstill and then it just jumps up in time for sure as soon as it's ready so we're going to leave it alone I turned up the heat a little bit to give it some assistance so we're just about there and then we'll be adding our nuts and then we're going to kick it a little bit more and then we'll be adding our butter and our mixture with our vanilla and baking soda and please let me know if you have any questions or even any comments on making brittle while we're waiting for this we're gonna see we're gonna watch for our color and these digital thermometers are great but candy thermometers work good as well and you know keeps keep an eye on this watch for the color as well and hopefully your thermometer is always working good and it's in good shape but you just never know I'm shakes a little yes um every year I make the brittle but sometimes it ends up being a really creamy color with lots of bubbles and other times it ends up nice and clear and it's perfect what am I doing wrong when it does the other thing okay so the bubbles are typically from the baking soda and that's a really good aspect to the brittle because that helps it be not so hard and not so like almost tooth cracking so the bubbles are good and the creaminess and the opaqueness could be from what you're adding to your brittle if you have some Brittles have a lot of butter an emphasis on recipe in particular I'm only putting three tablespoons in but I've seen brittle recipes for as much as one cup of butter in them and they're the same ratio of sugars as I have here so you may want to explore a different recipe that has a little bit less butter in it because I think it's the milk solids in the butter that are turning it a creamy color so are you using a recipe that has a high butter content in it no it has three tablespoons it's really similar to what you're doing and all I do is add the sugar the water of the butter or baking soda vanilla and then either peanuts or cashews and it just seems like it turns out different every time for me okay well we'll take a look at this one when it's done and we'll see how it compares to the one that you're making and maybe you even need to cut down the butter a little bit if it's too creamy for you and then it could be a little bit lighter but these are really opaque and you may need to cook it a little bit more are you bringing it up to 300 I'm actually not sure okay that could be a - let me go ahead and add these um cashews in here and we're gonna go ahead and mix them and make sure that you're mixing these in real good they can stick together on you so now sometimes this part goes fast and sometimes it comes slow so we're just gonna keep an eye on this and we're gonna watch her this to come up to 300 degrees and then we're going to be pouring this once our mixture is completely made we're going to be pouring this onto a Silpat okay so let me keep an eye on this and we'll talk more I think that maybe if yours is a little too late that you might not be cooking it to 300 degrees but like I said we'll take a look at this one it's done and you can kind of do a comparison to the one that you make and see if you like this better and you're definitely going to want to invest in a thermometer it's just a great thing to have in the pastry kitchen especially for making candies like this and you can even use it for your sauces you can use it to temperature your liquid for your yeast so super handy to have I definitely recommend it I have thermometers but I think the recipe I use says to boil it for four minutes after it comes to an auburn color okay yeah some recipes are like that they just give a time and you know everyone's time could be different depending on you know the strength of your your burner so I would definitely get a thermometer in almost every recipe that you're going to see is going to call for first bringing the mixture up to 240 degrees and then finishing it off at 300 degrees so I think if you get a thermometer you'll get some consistency and then you can see maybe you're only bringing it up to 280 that's why it's lighter and that's okay too but if you want it to get a little bit darker bring it to the full 300 degrees I'm kind of keeping an eye on the temperature here and then we're going to finish this off with our baking soda water and vanilla and lastly our butter so I'm just um can get kind of tricky with these nuts in here I can actually smell them toasting as we're talking I just want to make sure that this doesn't go too far man turned down my fire a little bit make sure you can keep it under control I'm just gonna put this in here when I'm gently stirring this and keep an eye on it but yeah like I mentioned definitely invest in a candy thermometer I think that you'll use it a lot especially it sounds like you're making this enough where you could really use it and the times are good on recipes and that's a really good guide for people that don't have a thermometer but since you're going to be doing this a little bit often definitely get one especially because you're not happy with the color of your brittle so this is really coming along it's really getting there and I just want to make sure that these cashews aren't toasting too much let's get a little tricky with your thermometer error this mixture is going to be turning just a little bit more golden in color and like I said with these sugars it seems like they you know they're at one temperature for so long and then all of a sudden they just jump off those ones got about maybe 10 more degrees not even to go it's climbing pretty good for us okay and this is ready is to reach 300 degrees Fahrenheit so as you can see it's a nice like amber golden color let's go ahead and add our baking soda and vanilla and water make sure this may bubble up on you so be careful when you're adding this and always keep safety in mind first when you're doing these things kind of back off a little bit from the steam as you can see I'm using a wooden spoon I prefer this for my my caramel mixtures like this because the handles not going to heat up on you so definitely always keep safety in mind I recommend making these small batches to you they're just a little bit easier to control so we're just mixing this in until this butter is melted and then we're going to be pouring this on a Silpat you can use a greased cookie sheet that works well too and I'm just going to sprinkle a few of the green pumpkin seeds on top just because it's just that time of year okay so our brittle is looking really good and just gonna settle down a little bit with that foaming this go ahead and put it on our soap Pat and then we're just going to spread it around your pot you're going to want to soak it in some water that's gonna help with the cleanup okay so our brittle is looking good I like to spread it around a little bit so it doesn't get do you think it's a little bit easier to snap and as you can see my nuts toasted a little bit there in the bottom I could actually smell them while we were chatting but that's okay it's just gonna add a little bit more flavor be careful that you don't let them get to you dark so while the mixture is still hot I'm just gonna sprinkle lightly some of these green pumpkin seeds on here you could even sprinkle chocolate chips are going to melt a bit but that'll just give it a nice effect or any any nut so be nice you could even make the mixture without the nuts and sprinkle all of your nuts right on top so super easy dessert to make and a great gift you can package these in tins you could package this in little plastic bags or you can you know serve it on plates let's go ahead and take it to look at the brittle that I made earlier that's completely set this is gonna set for about an hour I know it's hard but don't touch it because it is so hot you will get burned maybe keep a little dish of ice water on your table when you're working on this think you should get a little splash or something on your hand then you can dip your hand in the ice water that'll be helpful to fill a town quickly let's go ahead and take a look at the brittle that I made earlier that's completely hard and set okay so here it is the brittle and I like to get my fingerprints all over those I'm always gonna wear my gloves you can even you can break this up by hand just like this or you could use a kitchen little kitchen mallet like something like this to break it up but I like to break mine by hand cuz I don't like pieces following it I around everywhere so does your brother look like this one or is yours lighter in color sometimes it looks like that and sometimes it just looks like a foamy mess okay well I think that getting your thermometer is really going to help you out a lot and the foaming is from the baking powder I mean the baking soda if it's foaming a little bit too much on you maybe it's not accurate your baking soda or maybe at one point your baking soda was more fresh than another time so if you're find that you're having more foaming that you like go ahead and cut back on the baking soda so that's okay to do too you'll see a lot of these recipes some of them have like I said a lot of butter in them some have less baking soda than others so you know definitely go ahead and modify your recipe it's not going to hurt something like this if you change the baking soda a little bit to alleviate some of that foaming and then your candy thermometer is just really going to ensure that you've got the same temperature every time you could be off a little bit like make sure that you get it off the stove when it's just about one degree under 300 or two degrees because it's going to keep cooking while you're bringing it over to your counter to add your butter and your baking soda but I think a thermometer will help you and then like I said a little bit less baking soda but have fun try some different recipes with this brittle you'll love these and you'll see that they're all different and like I said some of them have a lot of butter room in them which I love butter so I would probably go with the one with more butter in it and definitely a great flavor so let's go ahead and put some of these on a plate and then we're going to say our goodbyes and I hope that you enjoyed the session I'm brittle today please let me know if you have any questions send me some pictures are the brittles that you're making maybe for the holidays I mean this is nice with the pumpkin seeds you know for the coming Thanksgiving holiday you can really jazz these up chef Susie absolutely loves sprinkles so some sprinkles on here would be nice too you add some color you go kind of for a little bit more of a natural approach with some full almonds or maybe some dried fruit so definitely explore your brittles they kind of seem do not want to hold on this plate so maybe you want to put them in a bowl or even a basket like I said a nice tin would be nice even a little bag so thank you so much for joining me today and we'll see you next time goodbye you