Nut Candies

1. 01 Introduction: Thank you for taking this class. We had fun making are three types of brittle or hard candies. In this class, I will teach you how to make these three different types of these candies are great treats for home or great gifts to give to friends and neighbors. First, I will teach you how to make them become brittle. I don't teach you how to make the peanut brittle. Then I will teach you how to make the English better toughy. Finally, I will show you how to package the candy for storage and gift-giving itself, taught Baker and cake decorator. Many years ago, I decided I wanted to make cakes for other people for special occasions. So I took some classes, watch videos that a lot of books and of course a lot. Until I felt like my decorates skills with the level that I could decorate cakes for other people. I then opened up my own home bakery and I had this business for several years. One of the things I did of this bakery, if I went to different festivals, like at Christmas time, where I made these gravels to sell at the festivals. I had this business for several years and tell my husband got a job offer in New York City. We felt like this was a good move for us. And so I close down my business and we moved across the country to New York City. Now here in New York City, I do not want to go through the steps to open up another whole business, but I still up baking cookies. I have decided to share my skills with you on Skillshare. This class is aimed at the Baker and cookie would like to learn how to make some delicious, not the thinking for themselves or give away as gifts. I am excited to teach you the skills in this class. Let's move on to lesson number one. Become brittle. 2. 02 Pecan Brittle: We're ready to start making comparable. The first thing we need to do is get the pans ready. Because once the bread is totally than kicking, we don't have time to prepare the pounds. I have my two pounds here. I have silicon mats in there to help it does not stick. But even with that, I still want to spray this mess down with the spray with those spread down. I'm now ready to go to this toe and start my blue. I'm going to start by using other to butter up the sides of my. This is going to help make it so that the sugar does not stick to the sides of the pounds crystallize. We're going to put the butter in the pan. And to that, we're going to add sugars, the brown sugar, and the granulated sugar, corn syrup, and the water. I'm now going to turn the heat to medium heat and work in a Cook's doing this until it's completely dissolved. The butter and all the sugars. That'll take a few minutes to get all this dissolved. When I stood, I do want to make sure that I am constantly scraping along the bottom so that everything gets mixed thoroughly. I'm also going to make sure this butter is touching the bottom. So the heat on the bottom of the pan will help it melts. As you can see, the butter is almost completely melted. So I'm gonna stop stirring for a second so that I can pick this candy thermometer in the panel. And I want to make sure it is down in the stuff, but not touching the bottom. And you notice because it has been cooking for a few minutes, it's already gone up to about 100. Actually getting close to 150. But we want to cook it and stir it like this until it reaches 275, which is the soft crack stage. And that should take about 30 min, not from here, but from when we started heating it. I'm gonna keep Stern, I think cooking. You keep stirring yours and cooking. And when we get to 275 will be back here to show you what we do next. You'll notice that it's starting to boil along the edges. Getting up to 275, it's gonna be boiling all along the top. We're gonna be getting a nice boy going on here. So you're just going to keep stirring it. So none of a firm's until it gets to that to 75. Make sure that the thermometer stays in the PAM and notice it's boiling up quite a bit now. We have to keep stirring it so it does not boil over the top. Because again, our goal is to get it to 75. Right now, it's about 02:25. So we have about 50 more degrees to go until we're ready for the next step. It is getting close to 275. It's not flight there, that it's really close. You can see it's boiling quite nicely. When we do dump, it becomes n, which is the next thing we're going to do. This will go down because the cons, we'll take it down. Then we'll have to bring the heat back up. And I have been Stern it constantly while it gets up to 275. History age to 75. So now we're going to do is dump our pecans them, and then stir them in. Totally coated. And we're gonna continue cooking this. So I can see it till it reaches nine to five. So almost 300 degrees or the hard crack stage. And it did go down about ten degrees. So we do need to bring it back up and then all the way to nine to five, Start constantly now, but we do need to stir frequently. Now as we start because of those nuts, we have to be more careful in Stern it because we don't want to knock the candy thermometer around too much. So what we're going to keep stirring up frequently, lead the rest until it reaches that to 95. It's almost gotten back up to the 275, which is what it was at before. We put the nuts and now we just need it to go the extra 20 degrees till it gets to 295. And then we'll be back. It is almost two to nine to five, it's about to 90. Scott, five more degrees to go. So again, I've just been stern up frequently, but letting it also sit unstirred for times. And it's really helped the temperature go up fast if you're not constantly staring, right? It has reached to 95. So I'm going to turn the heat off. I'm going to remove the candy thermometer. And I want to sprinkle the baking soda over the top and stir it in. We now want to bring this over to the baking sheets and pour it out. So I want it about half on this 1.5 from you. Once I have them dumped, I want to spread this thin as I can. The recipe says to pull it apart with the fork. But I find, as long as I'm doing this and spreading it out, I really don't need a fourt to pull it. Spread between two baking sheets, going back and forth between the two to spread it out. So there's my 01:00 P.M. yes, my other pan. I am now going to let these completely cool in the baking sheets. If I were to touch them with my hands right now, I would burn my hands. But by letting them cool, I'll be able to then break them apart without a problem. 3. 03 Peanut Brittle: We're ready to bake peanut brittle. The first thing we want to do is spread two pounds stem cell are going to be pouring the units. We're now ready to go over to the stove and make the peanut butter. We're going to start by taking our butter heading powder all along the side. This helps make it so that the sugar does not crystallize. Spread the butter along the sides. I'm going to just dump it in and turn it to a medium temperature. This, I'm going to add my sugar, my corn syrup, and my y. And then I want us to all of this to get combined. And I want the butter to melts. And I need to be stern up constantly so that nothing firms better is almost melts it. We are waiting for this mixture to come to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, we will clip on the candy to monitor. And we will turn me heat down from a medium-high to a medium low. You can see the butter's melted. Now we're just waiting for it to come to a boil. When I stop staring, I can see it's not quite to that Boyle in the middle. It's getting close because you're getting bubbles along the side of it. But we want it to be a complete boil. Now I'm going to turn the heat down to a medium low. And I'm going to stick my candy thermometer m, so that it's in this stuff. But it's not touching the bottom because I don't want to measure the heat of the bottom of the pan. Measure the heat, the temperature of the liquid. And we're going to start this until it reaches 275 degrees, which is a soft crack stage. The recipe says this could take about 30 min. It didn't take that long yesterday with the become brittle. So I doubt this will, but we'll see. The important thing is to get it to that 275 degrees stirring constantly. We're actually only going to stir this occasion we don't need. You'll notice acids getting a higher temperature. It's becoming a heavier serve. And it's going down in the pan and it's not as high up in the past. We are to, to 60, so we only have 15 more degrees to go before we add the two. There is almost at 275 to 70 would just have that lasts five degrees to go. So we're watching it a lot closer now, waiting for it to get up to 275, what it does reach to 75. We're going to dump our Rob peanuts into this. We're ready to dump or peanuts him. Just dump it in and we stir it in. So we're going to stuck constantly. So we have this totally started getting all of the peanuts coated with this spirit. We have the peanuts totally sturdy. Then we're gonna go to gesturing frequently. So more often than when we were getting with up to 75, not constantly. We're going to cook this till it now gives to 95. And when we dumped the peanuts and this did drop about ten degrees because the peanuts were cold. So we actually need to bring it back up to 75 and then continue on to 95. It's still dropping. It's almost gone back down to two if not applied. But we still need to cook it until it gets to 95. As the peanuts warm up and they start kicking. This will start rising again. And this part should take about 15 to 20 min. She noticed that sonata this point, because we've got all these solid peanuts, but we do want to make sure that they don't burn and that's why we store it frequently. It has started rising backup, but we're still below that to 75 that we started. We've now reached that to 75, so we're back up to the temperature we were before we added the nuts. Now we just need to continue to cook it stern up frequently until it reaches that to 95. It has reached to 95. So we're turning the heat off and we're taking the candy thermometer out. And we're going to sprinkle the baking soda on top. Once we have it sprinkle, want to stir it in. You'll notice it's firm enough. Let's put it, we want it to do. Now we're going to take it over it important. So I want to pour about half and half of it in my other PAM. Once I have it in the pan, I want to spread it as thin as I can get it. So it can cool and be this one. And I'm gonna do it to this one. I obviously put a lot more than the other parent, but that's okay. It's both PAM so big enough that it can hold more than half. Just wanted to keep spreading this out until I have it as thin as I wanted. Without like this. I'm gonna go ahead and let this totally cool. I do not want to touch it right now because if I did, I would give myself very bad. 4. 04 English Butter Toffee: To start making the English pattern, the first thing we need to do is to grind the almonds into smaller pieces. I have my nut grinder here, and I have my elements. I need one cup, which I have that mark you in right here on my grinders. So I'm just going to grind, tell the nuts get up to there. And because it's candy and sprinkled on top, it doesn't have to be totally accept, but I want to get it as close to one cup doesn't count. So I just fill that up. And then I turn this to gradients. You can use a food processor. Brian did a lot finer. Or you could even use a knife and just chop them up. I like using my nuts, right? I have basically one cup ground. It's teeny bit more in the center, not quite there at the edge. So it probably is about one cup. We now want to spread them down so that when we're done cooking the candy, we can put it right in the path. We're now ready to go over to the stove and start making eye candy in our large heavy sauce pan. We're going to combine the two cuts up other and I want to turn the medium. Then we're going to add the sugar and the one for teaspoon of salt. We now want to stir this. Tell the button is melted and the sugar is dissolved into the butter. And the steroid in the beginning is not going to be a lot because we still have these huge cubes of butter. But I asked the butter melts will be able to do a better job of storing. As you can see, the batter is starting to melt. We still have some chunks, so we're still going to keep stirring up until the butter completely melts. We're not doing a real vigorous stir, which is doing a nice soft, gentle stir which keeps the butter and all the stuff moving. Butter is almost melted. The next step that we're looking for is we want this to come to a boil. We want the better to finish melting. And then we want this to come to a boil. When I stopped. You can see there are bubbles forming on the sides. But right now we're trying to get that butter melted. That's why we're stirring it to keep the hotspots altogether. The butter melts faster. My betters now melted. You can see it's starting to come to a boil. I'm going to stick my candy thermometer in. And we're going to cook this stern occasionally. Not constantly, but occasionally. Well, it boils, which you can see it's starting to get to that boiling, tell it reaches 285 degrees. Now you can see it pretty much has a nice foil that's covering most of it. And I'm just going to start down. Occasionally. We'll be back when this gets close to that 285 degrees. This is almost a 285 to 80. So we just need it to come up five more degrees. You'll notice it's starting to turn a little bit more ground as the butter has brown, it is reached to a file. So I'm going to turn the heat up and we're gonna go dump this. Well first let's remove the candidates monitor. And we're gonna go dump to our Pam. We just want to dump this out on the pen. Helps products, so it gets to all of the gifts spread out evenly because we don't want a very thick. Once we get that spread out evenly, I want to sprinkle the chocolate chips on it. And then let this sit for a minute or two. While it melts and softens. This is softened. So now we just want to spread that chocolate all the way out to the edge of eye candy. You notice the canvas. As it moves. Spreading up chocolate all the way up to the edge. Keeps spreading it to have it all into the edges. And we can see that all of the chocolate has melted. I don't want to see any chocolate chips, chocolate chunks. I also don't want to see any of the toffee that's underneath. I want it all to be covered. Wherever you see a thicker, you want to move it to where it's thinner. Now we're going to take our almonds and just sprinkle it on top. Once I've totally covered it, I can look and see where it's lacking. Go back to those spots. With that done, I'm just going to come back with my spatula to press that down. We're now going to take this and put it in the fridge so that chocolate completely set up. After it's set up, we'll be ready to break it apart. 5. 05 Packaging And Storage Of Candy: Our become brittle has totally cool. We're now ready to pack it up for storage. I have a container to put it in. I'm just going to take like become brittle and break it up into sizes I want for serving. And I'm gonna do this with both pounds. And there we have the second panel. We just want to cover this so I can stay fresh till we're ready to make our gift box. This can be stored at room temperature, and I have the other two candies made. And we pack it in. Our gift bags box or peanut brittle has totally cool. So we're now ready to put it in a container to store it until we're ready to put together the gift boxes. We're just going to check the pedal and break it apart into our bite-size pieces and put it in our container. So we just keep breaking it apart. We have all of it and I'll look for continuous. We want, as you can see, one recipe of this next slide. I just want to cover this up so we can stay until we're ready to make our boxes. We let this sit in the fridge and now we're ready to break it apart. So I want it kind of I put a spatula under it so that I could break them off. And then I'm just going to break these into nice bite-size pieces and put them in my container. I just keep breaking it up until I have it all done. Here. We have the end of breaking it apart. We can then put the lid on up to containers. These are ready to be gift box. I've made all of the candies, and now we're going to do a gift box. I went ahead and made this gift products that has the three together. And yet to do after you get them in there, close it up and this is ready to give. Let me show you how I did that. First of all, I thought these small cookie boxes and I bought this Christmas. I'm going to buy a piece of paper in the bottom. And I want it to go up to five, just a little bit on both sides. Then equal amounts on the front and the back. So this does not go up above. So that gives her the coating it needs for the bottom. I need to make the dividers. And I did that with two more uses of the table. And the first thing I did is I cut this in half. I've put it in there and I was one third is about right here. So unlike in about one-third. And then I'm taking this paper and I'm holding it at that one third point. And then this is going to go straight up. And then I need to decide, I want this scope out this high from looking at how high I want it. And I wanted about that high. And I'm going to fold it again. And then I want this last piece folded. And then this is one-half of my thought. For now I'm gonna do the same thing. Instead of making them with the box, I'm just going to use this piece of paper and use it as a template. And do that again, I'm going to focus in half. And then I just lay that on there. And because it doesn't have to be exact, that's where I'm going to fold it again. Hold it right there. And then I'm going to put this back on there. Got down, making sure these align that to the side because that's what makes it square. And then I want to fill that. And then I should have my second piece. I just wanted to stick this. And then I just stick this in math. And it's kinda flimsy right now, but that's okay. Then I've got to decide which one do I want to put in the middle on this one? I picked the one that was the most different or the English better tough in the middle. And I can do that, but this also, I just want to stick this in and fill that center section up with the English. Better, toughy. Once I get that. I feel one side with the pivotal thing is, is when you're putting it in, if a piece is too big, just right. And the other side convert all. These really are flexible because this is just that wax paper and able to move it however much I want my candy. So now you saw how I did it. And then of course, I would just take this, close the box. Now the other thing you can do is you might decide that you just want a box with the onetime in it. So to do that, you would just take your paper. And then I just pick whichever one I want to put in there. So let's say I want this one to be English better toffee. I would just fill this whole box with the English. Better, toughy. Now obviously, if I were to do this, you're only gonna get a couple of boxes out of each candy that you make, because it takes a lot more to fill a box. So a lot's going to depend on who you're giving it to, what they like. So then I just feel that until I feel like it's full. And then of course I would cover. You could do this same thing with the K-map and the same with the pre-comp. It's going to work anyway, you choose to do it. You could get a little baggies and put them in the battles. I don't have Christmas baggies. But you can also do little gifts in the bag. So you can take one of these papers them. Then you could just stick these little papers inside the bag. That Christmas. It's at the back of the bag. You just stick some candy in the back. And of course this way we're going to be given a lot less cabinet because these are just snap. I have some Janda in the bag and I seal it up. You can also buy Christmas bags so you don't need but I didn't happen to have any, so I'm just doing it this way. Let's draw our English better. And then I'll do the same with the grill. You have three little kids. That's the candy that you could give away. You could fit them together. Just a ribbon to that. Work. You have the three different people. You can have fun deciding how you want to box up you can do to give to your family and friends. 6. 06 Final Thoughts: Thank you for taking this class. We had fun making are three kinds of nuts or brittle. We first learn how to make our pecan girdle. Then we learned how to make a peanut. The final candy that we learned how to make was English, but a tough. We admit all three candies. I showed you how to box them up or package them so that you could give them away as gifts or you could just keep them in the original air-tight containers that I showed you as I finished his cabbie to enjoy as a family at home. I hope you're candies. Turned out the way that you wanted them to. Your project for this class is to make these three recipes and are in our project section. Please upload a picture of your bristles and tell us how it went. Which one? You like the best. I look forward to hearing from you. From my kitchen to your kitchen.