Cashew Brittle Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why is baking soda added to nut brittle? ›

Baking soda is also very important at this stage since it reacts to the heat, creating carbon dioxide that aerates the caramel, enabling it to snap when someone bites into it rather than requiring them to gnaw at it until it breaks or pulls apart.

Buttery cashew brittle is made with sugar, corn syrup, and cashews, which make it even more special. Cashew brittle is always welcome but is especially nice to have on hand for holiday guests and visiting family.

Preheat oven to 350-degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread cashews onto prepared baking sheet, leaving plenty of room between them. Bake for 10-12 minutes, stirring every 3-4 minutes. Cashews are done when they are lightly browned and smell nutty and fragrant.

Why is it too hard? Using baking soda usually prevents peanut brittle from being too, well, brittle. However, if you cook the candy past the set temperature or overwork the candy once you spread it out onto the cookie sheet, that can cause it to become very hard and difficult to bite through.

The main reason why peanut brittle doesn't get hard and have the crunch we expect is because the sugar was not cooked long enough. The sugar needs to be cooked to what is called the hard crack stage, 300ºF.

Water: Hard candies like peanut brittle require just enough water to dissolve the sugar. Nearly all of the water will evaporate during the cooking process. Corn syrup: Crucial crystal-blocker or “doctoring agent”. Without glucose syrup, the peanut brittle will recrystallize and develop a crumbly, gritty texture.

Like grains and beans, nuts contain enzyme inhibitors that can restrict our ability to digest the nutrients they contain. Soaking nuts and seeds in water, then drying in a low oven or dehydrator, neutralizes the enzyme inhibitors and makes their nutrients more readily available.

Cashew fruit also known as cashew apples is not even a real fruit! It's considered an accessory fruit because as you can see here the seeds grow on the outside. There's a toxin around the raw cashew nut that cannot be consumed.

Black mould is one of the most important foliar diseases of dwarf cashew plants in coastal zone of northeastern Brazil.

Your dog can eat cashews as long as they're not mixed with other nuts, preferably if they're not salted or seasoned in any way. These nuts might not be the best snack, but one now and again won't hurt them.

Can humans eat raw cashews? ›

Both raw and roasted cashew nuts are good and provide health benefits. However, roasting nuts may damage their healthy fat, reduce their nutritional value as compared to eating them raw.

But even when you are going to roast your cashews, soaking can make them much more flavorful. Soaked cashews can better absorb spices and seasonings that you use to roast them, and this process can lead to a texture that is simultaneously crunchier and easier to chew.

Didn't get it hot enough. You have to hit hard crack stage heat or it's not going to harden. From internet: Hard-Crack Stage is a cooking term meaning that a sugar syrup being heated has reached 149 – 154 C (300 – 310 F.) It is a test of how hot a sugar syrup is, and of how much water is left in it.

Why did my peanut brittle turn out chewy? The likely cause is that the sugar mixture didn't reach the proper hard crack stage temperature. Ensuring it reaches 300˚F is key to getting that classic brittle texture.

If you overcook the brittle, it could be bitter or burnt. If you undercook it, the brittle won't properly set and the end result will be sticky.

Is baking soda or powder best for frying? A pinch of baking soda can help produce crispy fried foods. It reacts with the acid in the batter to create carbon dioxide bubbles. These lead to an airy batter and a crisper, fluffier result.

Baking soda is typically used as a leavening agent, which means it can be used to help baked goods rise. Because it is an alkali, it will react when it comes into contact with an acidic ingredient like cream of tartar, lemon juice or buttermilk.

The candy syrup is slightly acidic. When baking soda is added, it reacts with the acid and releases bubbles of carbon dioxide. This makes the syrup foam and expand so the finished candy is not so hard and dense.

Although baking soda cannot soften the water fully, it, being alkaline, changes the pH of hard water to make it more suitable for skin and hair.