The Best-Ever Brittle—No Candy Thermometer Required

Dawn Perry, Bon Appetit

At the end of 2013, we called on readers to make our least popular recipe of the year: Chocolate Cake with Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Frosting and Peanut Butter Brittle. But after promoting it on Facebook and Twitter, we realized why this poor cake might not be getting the love it deserves: the brittle.

“Making my own brittle seems a little scary,” admitted reader Lesley Mason. “My only issue is that I don’t own a candy thermometer,” commented Bunny Avila. “Way too much work involved, no thanks,” said Desrae Cheary. This extra step deterred you from all the chocolatey, peanut-buttery goodness that could have been. But here’s the kicker: Cake or no cake, brittle isn’t so scary. Actually, it comes together really quickly. Just follow these five tips and you’ll be a brittle-making maverick.

1. Be prepared. This is the KEY to working with hot sugar. Have all your ingredients—and your prepared baking sheet—ready to go and easily accessible. That means measuring your ingredients and putting them in little bowls so all you have to do is grab and go.

2. Don’t touch. Once you’ve stirred together the sugar, corn syrup, and water, let them come up to a boil WITHOUT STIRRING! But don’t walk away. When it’s starts to brown, it will brown fast.

3. No candy thermometer needed. Once you start to see some color form around the edge of the sugar mixture, turn your heat down to medium (will give you some wiggle room and more control). Gently swirl the pan to incorporate the caramelized sugar, then continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until the mixture is even dark amber.

4. Fear not. Finally, don’t get scared when it bubbles vigorously (that’s from the baking soda and what makes it “brittle” enough to crunch through). Just work quickly while you pour the mixture onto the prepared sheet. Don’t worry too much about spreading it out perfectly, it will spread as it wants to. THEN walk away.

5. Breaking it up is the best part. Just in case you didn’t already know.

Now, try it: Pumpkin Seed Brittle

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