Luscious fats combined with the seething heat of local honey and coconut sugar become the nut-studded hard-crack confection called brittle. This wholesome brittle is crammed with crunchy, toasty-nut goodness, sweetened with equal amounts coconut palm sugar and honey, and enriched with your choice of coconut or dairy to round out the flavors. This recipe is also fun, in my opinion, because I totally become immersed in the process of watching chemical reactions take place within the sugars and then the exciting color-changing froth from adding baking soda. (The baking soda creates air pockets in the hardened brittle making for a more delicate crunch.)
After perusing plenty of honey-themed cookbooks and desserts, this recipe is the natural connection to the realization that honey can be as versatile as refined sugar in the holiday food arena. So, many burnt batches of brittle later, I have come through with a more thorough understanding of candy-making. I love that honey can substitute for the oft-used corn syrup and that coconut palm sugar can caramelize so beautifully. Both of these ingredients have more depth of flavor than your typical white sugar and the subtle fruitiness I find in the coconut sugar complements nuts wonderfully. Make this brittle appropriate to a dairy-free lifestyle by using the coconut options instead of the cream and butter. Both offer lovely, but different, flavor inflections.
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