Easy Pecan Brittle Recipe - CopyKat Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you make Ethel M pecan brittle recipe? ›

Ingredients 1 Stick of butter 1/2 of brown sugar Pinch of salt 1 cup of pecans 1tsp of vanilla Caramelize the butter and sugar Add salt and vanila once cooled Drizzle over graham crackers evenly Drizzle pecan over caramel Bake in the oven until caramel is bubbly. About 10 mins on 350 Let cool and enjoy!

Baking soda is also very important at this stage since it reacts to the heat, creating carbon dioxide that aerates the caramel, enabling it to snap when someone bites into it rather than requiring them to gnaw at it until it breaks or pulls apart.

You'll also want to prepare a baking sheet, with either a silicone mat or parchment paper. The mat/paper will help ensure the peanut brittle doesn't stick directly to pan once it has cooled.

In a nonstick saucepan, heat and stir sugar, corn syrup, water and salt over medium heat until sugar has dissolved. Over high heat, using a candy thermometer, cook sugar mixture to a hard crack stage (290 °F). Add pecans and butter and cook to 300 °F stirring all the time to keep the nuts from burning.

How to Create Your Own Pecan Meal. For a hearty substitute to flour or breading ingredients, round up your favorite pecan nuts and grind them up to make pecan flour. Using a food processor would be the easiest and quickest way to make pecan flour. If you don't have a food processor, a blender can work.

#1 - Store in an airtight container

It should come as no surprise that storing your peanut brittle in airtight containers is one of the best ways to store peanut brittle. Keeping air out helps maintain your brittle's freshness by minimizing the amount of moisture that might come into contact with your sweet treat.

The main reason why peanut brittle doesn't get hard and have the crunch we expect is because the sugar was not cooked long enough. The sugar needs to be cooked to what is called the hard crack stage, 300ºF.

The combination is believed to have developed in the South during the 1920s, as a snack for blue-collar workers that did not require them to wash their hands. It quickly became popular as a summer snack, especially in rural areas. The snack became an internet trend in 2018.

Why is my peanut brittle sticky? Humidity and moisture are culprits here. Always store your peanut brittle in a cool, dry place and in an airtight container to keep it crisp.

To store: Store peanut brittle (once it's completely cooled) in an airtight container at room temperature. Do not refrigerate as the moisture from the fridge will cause the brittle to soften. Store for 6-8 weeks. To freeze: Peanut brittle can be frozen and stored up to 3 months.

What is the best pan for making peanut brittle? ›

Heavy 6 quart Dutch Oven pot. Mine is an old 1970's Club Aluminum. It's perfect! You need a heavy THICK pot so it won't scorch.

Not spreading the mixture thinly enough: If the peanut brittle is too thick (usually because you used too small of a pan), it may not cool and harden properly. Be sure to spread the mixture as thinly as possible in the pan.

Though it's not exactly clear when the first brittle was created, one legend says that a Southern woman created peanut brittle by mistake around 1890. (Which is oftentimes how the most delicious things are created — by happy accidents!)

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.

Boiling pecans before cracking them can actually help prevent the shell from shattering.

Why is it too hard? Using baking soda usually prevents peanut brittle from being too, well, brittle. However, if you cook the candy past the set temperature or overwork the candy once you spread it out onto the cookie sheet, that can cause it to become very hard and difficult to bite through.

Sugar: This sweet peanut brittle starts with a cup of white sugar. Corn syrup: Light corn syrup prevents graininess, ensuring a perfectly creamy texture. Water: Water helps the sugar completely dissolve. Salt: A pinch of salt enhances the other flavors.

Simply put, butter pecan is a flavor that merges the nutty notes of pecan with rich butter and a hint of sweet vanilla extract. The distinctive flavor of the pecan is hard to pinpoint – even for experts – but is perhaps best described as having sweet, fat, and roasted undertones.

The basic praline recipe includes locally-sourced pecan halves, creamy butter, sugar, and cream. However, depending on the cook and region, the amount of each ingredient and type of sweetener and fats may vary.