All About Brittle Candy: Standards, Tips, and Why Baking Soda Is Used

By Renee Shelton

Brittle candy is a noncrystalline candy made by cooking syrup to a hard crack stage, spreading it out into a thin layer and is served broken up in pieces. Any type of nut can be used in a brittle, although peanuts are the popular ingredient. Peanuts can be raw, salted, roasted, and unblanched redskin Virginia or Spanish peanuts. Virginia peanuts are much larger than the smaller Spanish peanuts.

If you have a bunch of redskin unblanched peanuts that you want to blanch, the process is simple. Cover with boiling water and let stand for a few minutes. Drain, running cold water over them and remove the skins. Let dry completely before adding them to the brittle.

Broken nut pieces are best for brittle. If you are chopping them on a cutting board, shake in a sieve to remove the fine dust which can cloud the brittle.

Brittle candy is stored at room temperature in a sealed container. Left open in humid climates the candy will turn sticky.

The Perfect Brittle Candy

According to the 1964 Guide to Modern Meals the standard is below, with not much deviating from the standard over 55 years later:

A noncrystalline candy with a brittle, slightly porous texture; surface golden brown and glossy; nuts evenly distributed; flavor of molasses.

Tips for Making Brittle Candy

When pouring the mixture, it is best to do it over a large, cool (well-buttered) surface such as marble, giving you the room to spread and stretch it as thing as you desire. You can stretch and pull it into your desired shape or size with buttered hands (when cool enough) or with the help of two forks. The ideal is to make it as thin and 'brittle' as possible. If you do not have a marble table, a very large baking sheet can be used. All surfaces should be buttered or oiled well before the candy is poured.

If a recipe calls for a very large amount of nuts (and generally all nut brittles do), it can be helpful to warm them up slightly before adding them to the hot sugar mixture. This is will give you a bit more time working with and stretching the brittle because if a large amount of cold nuts are added to the hot sugar, it will set up faster.

The 1970 Homemade Candy by the food editors of Farm Journal gives this tip on adding the nuts:

It is also a good idea to warm the nuts first so they will not cool the candy so much that you will be unable to pour it in a thing sheet. One way is to put the nuts in a slow (250 degree F) oven while the candy cooks.

If your candy crystallizes, they also give this tip:

If the brittle is sugary, you can redeem it. Put it in a saucepan with 3/4 cup hot water and 2 tablespoons light corn syrup. Heat slowly until candy dissolves. Then cook it again to the temperature specified in the recipe. Pour and stretch it as described