For a hard-boiled candy to be biteable, it needs to either be leavened or spread out very thinly. I have already discussed the topic of aerating candy in detail. Today, I want to focus on the practical part of candy-making: the recipes.
There are four candy recipes that I am going to cover today:
- Honeycomb toffee
- Nougat Montélimar
- German nut brittle
- American nut brittle
The flavors are intentionally very basic. The recipes are simple and a great starting point for people new to making candy. Learning to make candy is like learning how to cook sauces. Once you’ve understood and mastered the base recipes, you can start to experiment and come up with your own recipe variations that suit your taste.
I ain’t gonna stop you if you replace the almonds for Nougat Montélimar with peanuts and a few gratings of orange or lemon zest. Honeycomb toffee tastes wonderful with a few dashes of vanilla or bitter almond extract. Add whatever flavorings you like to these base recipes. Or leave them as is. Oftentimes the simple version tastes the best.
Honeycomb Toffee
Honeycomb toffee is leavened with baking soda. Once the syrup has reached 149 °C (300 ºF), you need to immediately take it off the heat and stir in the soda. Once the candy mass has puffed up, be gentle when spreading out the honeycomb toffee on a piece of parchment paper. You don’t want to deflate the airy candy mass.
In this recipe, you can replace half the glucose powder with honey if you like. However, please make sure to use refined liquid honey. Don’t use a fancy honey brand that contains a lot of impurities. These impurities will burn before the syrup is up to temperature.
Notes
Recipe Picture Source: beerorkid, Imgur
Ingredients
- 140 grams granulated sugar
- 60 grams glucose powder
- 1 cup water
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
Instructions
- In a pot with high sides, combine sugar, glucose, and water. Heat the syrup to 149 °C (300 ºF) and then immediately take it off the heat. Stir in the baking soda and wait for the syrup to foam. Pour the candy foam onto parchment paper and wait for it to cool down to room temperature. Then break the candy into pieces.
Nougat Montélimar
White nougat is popular around the Mediterranean area and is also known under names such as Torrone or Turkish honey. It has a long tradition in France. The traditional recipe for Nougat Montélimar dates back more than 500 years.
In Germany, people prefer dark nougat over the white variety. Dark nougat is a mixture of chocolate and hazelnuts. It has nothing in common with white nougat. Dark nougat was invented as a method to stretch chocolate with hazelnut paste. It is no aerated sugar syrup.
Nougat Montélimar
Ingredients
- 1 egg white
- 100 g lavender honey
- 300 g granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 150 g roasted almonds, chopped
- 50 g roasted pistachios, chopped
- 2 large wafer papers
Instructions
- Beat the egg white to stiff peaks.
- In a pot with high sides, combine the honey, sugar, and water. Cook the syrup to 143 °C (290 °F). Immediately take the syrup off the heat and beat it slowly into the whipped egg foam. Take a spatula and fold the nuts into the nougat mass.
- Spread the nougat out evenly on one of the wafer papers. Place the other wafer paper on top and leave the nougat to cool down to room temperature. Store the nougat wrapped in aluminum foil and cut into serving-size pieces as desired.
German Nut Brittle
German nut brittle is not leavened. It is one of the simplest things to make: Prepare a caramel and mix it with nuts. That’s it.
In Germany, we are big fans of hazelnuts and almonds. But you can use whatever nut variety you like. Oftentimes, the nut brittle is broken up into small crumbles and used as a cake topping or filling.
German Nut Brittle (‘Krokant’)
Ingredients
- 200 g granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 200 g chopped nuts
Instructions
- In a pot with high sides, combine the sugar and water. Heat the syrup until all the water has evaporated and the sugar starts to take on a golden caramel color (162 °C | 325 °F). Turn down the heat and whisk in the chopped nuts. Cook for about 1 minute while stirring constantly until the sugar has caramelized to your liking. Pour the nut brittle on a piece of parchment paper and leave it to cool down to room temperature. Once cooled, crack the brittle into bite-sized pieces.
American-style Peanut Brittle
American brittle recipes often call for baking soda. This lightens up the texture of the brittle. In Germany, nut brittle is only seldomly eaten by itself. It is used as a crunch element in cakes. However, in the US, it’s common to eat peanut brittle as a snack.
And I think that shows in the recipe. It uses glucose syrup to keep crystallization under control and the candy mass is leavened. Also, the peanuts are salted. Delicious in my opinion but in Germany very uncommon. If there is any salt in German desserts, it’s usually just so little that you can’t notice the salt. All this salted caramel or salted chocolate stuff that British and American people love is not very popular in Germany. Most Germans prefer sweet and sour things over sweet and salty.
Peanut Brittle (‘Amerikanisches Erdnusskrokant’)
Ingredients
- 140 grams granulated sugar
- 60 grams glucose powder
- 1/2 cup water
- 200 grams salted peanuts
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- In a pot with high sides, combine the sugar, glucose, and water. Heat the syrup to 121 °C (250 °F), then stir in the peanuts. Continue to cook the syrup until it reaches 149 °C (300 °F). Take the syrup off the heat and whisk in the butter and baking soda. Wait for the syrup to foam, then spread out the hot candy mass on a piece of parchment paper and leave it to cool down to room temperature before tearing it apart.
