Pistachio brittle

I’m not sure how, but not too long ago I ended up in Bad Idea Mode again and it convinced me to try my hand at candy making for the first time ever, especially with Christmas coming up. I wanted to start with a simple recipe I was relatively confident I couldn’t screw up. I’ve seen peanut brittle recipes a bunch of times, and thought that would be easy enough for me to attempt.

But peanut brittle, while delicious, is also kinda basic. You can just up and buy it anywhere. I could probably find it at Costco right now for a pittance. It seems only right if I’m gonna put work into cooking something, it should have a personal touch. And because pistachios somehow associate with Christmas for me, in a small way, it seemed only natural to make pistachio brittle with a peanut brittle recipe.

Since this isn’t really my recipe, I’ll start out with a link to the recipe I based this on: Sugar Spun Run’s peanut brittle. It looked pretty easy so I decided to give it a shot, and the only changes I made were replacing lightly salted peanuts with regular salted shelled pistachios, and replacing the vanilla extract with almond extract.

Because the Internet is a fickle place, though, here’s the recipe in full:

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup water, plus more for brushing sides of saucepan
• 1/4 tsp. salt (I used 1/2 tsp. kosher salt)
• 1 cup salted (not lightly salted) shelled pistachios
• 2 tbsp. butter, cubed, plus more for greasing pan if not using silicone mat
• 1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda

Tools needed:

• Heavy saucepan, not too big, with tall sides (I used a 3 qt. stainless steel; don’t try to use nonstick)
• Wooden spoon for stirring
• Candy thermometer
• Pastry brush
• Cookie sheet
• Silicone mat (optional)

Get all the ingredients together first because it’s important to move fast once the mixture reaches temperature. Prepare a cookie sheet by greasing with butter or using a silicone mat. Add the sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt to the saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, and brushing the sides with a wet pastry brush now and then to wash down any sugar crystals that form. Add a candy thermometer once the mixture comes to a boil, but don’t let it touch the bottom of the saucepan. Once the mixture reaches 250°F, add the pistachios, then stir continuously until the candy reaches 305°. Quickly remove it from the heat and stir in the butter, baking soda, and almond extract. Then quickly transfer the mixture to the prepared cookie sheet, spread it out, and let it cool for an hour. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container, not refrigerated, for up to 2 months.

There isn’t much to tell about this since I didn’t break any particularly interesting ground, except that I really enjoyed this twist on the classic peanut brittle recipe. The cherry-like flavor of the almond extract seems a little weird at first, but that’s the dominant flavor in pistachio ice cream after all, and it’s quite good here. I was worried that using an extract in candy rather than a flavoring oil would cause the flavoring to get lost, but it really didn’t; in fact I kind of think that using vanilla in the same amount would have been a bit overpowering, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

As a first go at candy making this was a great success. It took longer than I expected it to, however, and I suspect what amounts to medium heat on my stove was just a hair too low; I ended up turning my stovetop up from a 5 to a 6 in the later stages, but that was as far as I dared. My expectation was that once the water was gone the candy would shoot up rapidly in temperature, and that wasn’t quite the case. To be safe, I let some syrup clinging to the wooden spoon drip into some cold water in case my candy thermometer was wrong (this was its inaugural use), but it seemed to be about right.

I’ve been eating a piece or two of this here and there since I made it, but I really should slow down because the reason I don’t keep peanut brittle in the house is that it’s addictive and I’ll keep eating it. I should consider bringing what I have left to a family event instead, but realistically I think what’ll happen is that I’ll just end up making this again.