Cashew Brittle Recipe

Since I shared my pretzel brittle recipe with you yesterday, I thought I might as well share my cashew brittle recipe, too.

I have never been a fan of peanut brittle, but this cashew brittle is so good. The recipe was given to me by a gentleman who has since passed away. He used to make it every year at Christmas and I have carried on that tradition.

Normally, I make this by myself because it isn’t quick and the brittle gets very hot. However, I decided that Julia needed to learn how to make it this year.

She was a big help but passed the last of the job off to me which was just fine. Holding a heavy pot and pouring out 300 degree cashew brittle isn’t an easy task.

We took pictures of the process so you could see what the brittle looks like at different stages. I will share the recipe at the end.

In a large, heavy bottom pan combine the corn syrup, water, and sugar over medium high to high heat.

You may have noticed the butter already in the pan even though I didn’t list it. We I made the mistake of adding the butter at the beginning when I should have waited until after the mixture started to boil.

The only thing that happened as a result is that the end product was a little darker than normal. It pays to read the recipe. 🙂 Even so, it still tastes good.

Once everything was combined and the butter had melted, Julia thought she was done and all we had to do was to add the cashews.

I informed her that it was going to take a little longer since we hadn’t even hit the boiling point and we had to hit 300 degrees.

So, she stirred and stirred and the mixture began to really boil.

More stirring and quite a few minutes later, our mixture reached 280 degrees. Time to add the cashews.

I added the cashews and this is when the stirring became very difficult. Julia handed the spatula to me and I finished the job.

I kept stirring until the mixture reached 300 degrees.

Then I took the pan off of the burner and added some baking soda. The brittle got very frothy while I was stirring.

I divided the brittle mixture between two greased cookie sheets (Grease them before you do anything else in this recipe.) and spread it out with my spatula.

You really have to work quickly because the brittle starts to harden within a few minutes.

We let the the brittle cool and then broke it up into bite sized pieces. Now we are ready to give some away and eat a little, too.

Here’s the recipe in case you would like to give this recipe a try.