SLIDER

chocolate compost brittle

I like to make something from my kitchen to give to my neighbours and friends at Christmas time. I'm planning to make sour cherry amaretti this year but after reading this post from Smitten Kitchen I thought it would be nice to make some brittle as well. 





Inspired by this recipe for compost cookiesI thought I'd make some chocolate coated compost brittle using pretzels, popcorn and peanuts for the 'compost'.



I love peanut brittle and even though it's easy to make, I chose not to make it very often as it's way too addictive. 



I'm warning you because I don't think this version is any less addictive.






Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. My oven is not fan forced so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate Compost Brittle
1 cup caster sugar
30 mls light corn syrup or golden syrup (I used 15 mls of each)
¼ cup water
30g butter
½ teaspoon bicarb soda (baking soda)
½ cup broken-up chunks of thin salted pretzels
½ cup roasted salted peanuts
½ cup coarsely crumbled salted popcorn pieces
125g coarsely chopped dark chocolate

Method
Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F. Line a lamington tin (12 x 8 inch tin) with baking paper and place the pretzels, peanuts and popcorn on the tray. Put the tray in the oven to keep the pretzel mixture warm while you're making the toffee.

Combine the sugar, corn or golden syrup and water in a medium saucepan, stirring to combine. Cook without stirring until the temperature of the mixture reaches 150
°
C. Take the pretzel mixture out of the oven. Remove the saucepan from the heat and quickly stir in the butter, the warmed pretzel mixture and the baking soda (which will make the mixture froth up). Mix until the pretzel mixture is coated in toffee then immediately pour the brittle back into the paper lined pan. Using a knife or an off set spatula flatten out the brittle as much as possible. Leave the brittle to set. 

While the brittle is cooling, melt the chopped chocolate in a small bowl over simmering hot water or in the microwave. I reserve about 15-20% of the chocolate and put the rest of the chocolate into a small bowl. Zap the chocolate on high in 30 second bursts until most of the chocolate has melted. Give the chocolate a good stir until it has completely melted before adding the reserved chocolate. Keep stirring until the chocolate has completely melted.

Once the brittle is cool and has set, gently remove the brittle (still on the baking paper) and then turn it upside down onto a cooling rack. Remove the baking paper, then pour the chocolate over the flat base of the brittle smoothing it out using a spatula. Leave until the chocolate has completely cooled. If you can't wait, you can refrigerate the tray for about 20 minutes to speed up the setting process.

Once the chocolate has set break the brittle into shards. Store the shards of brittle in an airtight tin between waxed or baking paper. As its pretty warm in Sydney at the moment, my tin is stored in the bottom of the fridge to stop the chocolate from melting.



All packed and ready to share.

See you all again next week for a full week of posts for Christmas week 2015.

Bye for now,

Jillian
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