Food Lust People Love: Honey Walnut Brittle

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Honey Walnut Brittle

This microwave recipe for Honey Walnut Brittle is super easy and quick, yet delightfully buttery, nutty and delicious. I think Gram would approve.

There was really nothing my grandmother liked more than a good old-fashioned peanut brittle so occasionally I used to make or buy her some. She wasn’t really supposed to be eating candy because of her diabetes but, hey, the occasionally treat didn’t kill her.

In fact, she lived to the impressive age of 99 1/2 years old. When she passed away in July of 2013, we already had a big shindig planned for December to celebrate her 100th birthday. Truly, we expected her to live even longer than that.

Though a child of the early 1900s who rode a horse and buggy to school every day, she eagerly embraced cooking breakthroughs like the microwave and canned "cream of" soup. Her favorite cooking appliance was a little toaster oven. She made all sorts in that thing, from biscuits to baked chicken thighs and mini pizzas.

As I stirred this microwave brittle, I thought of Gram and how much she would have enjoyed both eating it and how easy it is to make.

Honey Walnut Brittle

You need a large microwaveable bowl for this recipe! When it boils in the microwave and again when the baking soda is added at the end, the mixture foams up and will overflow a small bowl. This recipe is adapted from one on All Recipes.

Ingredients

1 cup or 200g sugar

½ cup or 120ml honey

1 cup or 100g chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the foil

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ teaspoon baking soda

Method

Line a large baking sheet with foil and grease it well with butter.

Mix the sugar and honey together in a large microwave-safe glass bowl.

Place in the microwave and cook on high for 1 minute.

Stir, and cook 1 minute more.

Stir mixture again, and cook until mixture boils and the sugar is completely dissolved, an additional 30 seconds to 1 minute. I watched through the microwave door and mine started to bubble up at about 45 seconds.

Fold the walnuts into the sugar/honey mixture.

Heat in the microwave another 3 minutes, stirring between each minute. (I took photos all along the way but do you truly need to see them all? I'm guessing not.) The bowl will be hot so use mitts to protect your hands.

Stir in the butter, salt and vanilla extract.

Microwave until mixture is caramel in color, an additional 1 to 2 minutes.

Carefully remove the hot bowl from microwave, and quickly stir in baking soda until fully incorporated. This will foam up!

Immediately pour the mixture onto your buttered foil-lined pan.

Allow to cool until the brittle is set, about 15 minutes in a cool kitchen. It could take longer in a warm place. In hot Texas, I popped mine in the refrigerator when I got impatient. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the 23th edition of the 2024 Alphabet Challenge, brought to you by the letter W. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the W recipes below: