Sweet & Salty Nut & Seed Brittle

This was an easy slam-dunk! With all our nuts out on the kitchen table, the second thing I made with them (after the spiced and salted baked nuts) was some brittle. I saw the recipe in David Tanis new book “One Good Dish” and decided to give it a go. I am normally hesitant to make brittle in our humid weather, but figured this was going to be served over the next couple of days, so it was worth the risk.

I made 1.5 recipes worth, so you can scale this back if you need less brittle. This will be one of the after dinner sweets offered after some large holiday meals, so a little will go a long way. First, measure and set aside say 3/4 cup each of sliced almonds, pecan halves, walnuts and a handful or so of pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and anything else you want to throw in.

In a stainless saucepan, add 3 cups of white sugar, 1.5 cups of water and mix gently to dissolve the sugar per medium-high heat. Once sugar is dissolved let it be and do not stir. Let it come to an active boil and watch it after 5-8 minutes (mine took a bit longer still) and eventually it will start to color a bit. Watch very carefully now and when it turns a medium amber take it off the heat, add most of the nuts (I left say 20% of each kind separate to sprinkle on the top) and mix and immediately pour and spread over a silpat mat that has been slathered with some sweet butter. Srpinkle the remaining nuts over the top and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon or more of flakey sea salt.

If you don’t have a silpat, just butter a cookie pan and pour the molten sugar and nuts there instead. When it has cooled and hardened, take the brittle off the pan or silpat, break into large pieces and store in an airtight container. This is wickedly addictive. Not for those who can’t work through a hard brittle, but the nuts and seeds just make this a wonderful sweet, crunchy and salty treat. Superb and relatively quick to make as well.