Autumn Toffee

Hello.  My name is Rebecca, and I've been addicted to Pinterest for 1 year, 2 months, and 5 days....

Just kidding about the time, but not about the addiction.  It's bad.  The other day I had to rearrange my Feeding the Hoardes board because there were so many awesome recipes pinned there I started to feel like it was disorganized.  And a disorganized board on Pinterest is like a disorganized pantry, or a disorganized closet, or (gasp) a disorganized desk at work.  I just can't live with it.  

In the process of shuffling pins to specific food-related boards, I came across one for Autumn Brittle.  Have you seen it?  It's essentially nuts and dried cranberries in a brittle base.  I hadn't gotten around to making it because only one of our four kids would choose to eat nuts if they were sitting out on the counter.  My husband will eat them, but he's hit or miss on treats--sometimes he eats gross gobs of something, and other times it just languishes in the container.  Seeing the pin again got me thinking about the half-finished bags of a variety of nuts I had sitting in the pantry.  If I made autumn brittle and no one ate it, it would be no worse than letting the nuts waste in the pantry.

With that, I launched into boiling the sugar and honey and water.  If I've learned any kitchen lesson more than once, it's that attempting to bring a sugar syrup up to a hard crack stage too fast will result in a big stinky burnt mess.  That hard lesson was driven home again today, when setting the concoction at a 4.5 on my burner quickly resulted in scorched sugar.  Dump it out.  Rethink it.  And then epiphany struck.

I don't even like brittle.

But I do like toffee.  

And toffee and nuts could be a good combination.  And toffee and brittle are really only different by a lot of butter.  And butter and sugar are a marriage made in heaven.  Friends, I give you Autumn Toffee.  

It's just plain amazing.


Autumn Toffee
(Toffee base adapted from Paula Deen's English Toffee)

14 T butter
1 c. sugar
2 T. water
1 T. vanilla
3/4 c. rough chopped pistachios
3/4 c. cashews
3/4 c. sliced almonds
1 c. Craisins or other dried cranberries

Begin this with a little bit of prep work.  Combine your fruit and nut mixture in a bowl and set it aside.

Line a 9 x 13 cake pan or another similar-sized pan with foil and butter the foil.  Grab your candy thermometer.

In a large pot, combine the butter, sugar and water.  Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil.  Stir and boil the mixture for about ten minutes, then stop stirring and let the sugar reach 300 to 310 degrees.  That is the 'hard crack' stage.  Do this SLOWLY or the mixture will burn.  I set my burner to 2.5 out of 10 and left it there.

Once the mixture has reached 300 to 310, remove it from the burner.  Mix in the vanilla and the fruit and nut mixture.  Quickly scrape the mixture into the foil lined pan.  Press the mixture flat and allow it to cool.  If you're in a hurry, put it in the freezer for a bit.

WARNING:  Do not put any part of this in your mouth if you are being careful of your diet.  If you taste it, you are going to want more.  I can't be responsible for how much more you eat.  It's that good. 

  A brittle couldn't hold a candle to this.

Enjoy!